Dr. Foner's Lecture On Lincoln and Slavery

On Tuesday, March 5^th, I attended the lecture given by Dr. Eric Foner on Abraham Lincoln. As mentioned in class, Dr. Foner is a preeminent name in the history field and so I was looking forward to how his talk would be. I should say that I was not disappointed. Dr. Foner was an excellent speaker and made his topic quite interesting. Although I did recognize many of the points he made from class, he still presented them in an entertaining fashion and made some thought-provoking parallels to today’s politics.

To begin with, Foner made note of the importance of viewing Lincoln as part of the world around. Foner cautioned against studying Lincoln’s viewpoints and philosophies without context of Lincoln’s times. Lincoln was not a flat, one-sided personality. Although he did admit to hating slavery as much as abolitionists, he himself was not an abolitionist. Lincoln’s view on slavery, as well, did evolve. He initially viewed slavery as a theft of labor from the blacks. In addition to this, however, he eventually came to believe that blacks did deserve to have basic, inalienable rights. Lincoln did not think, though, that these rights included such things as voting. To begin with, as well, Lincoln believed blacks would have more equality if sent back to Africa, though he found that blacks did not accept this plan.

Foner also made interesting connections between Lincoln’s war powers and those of Obama’s today. When Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, he imprisoned American citizens without trial for months or years. What he did could be considered unconstitutional, though. Foner demonstrated this connection to Obama’s use of drones to assassinate potential harmful American citizens. Where then, however, should the line be drawn? Questions like these and Foner’s wonderful treatment of the topic made for a thoughtful and entertaining talk that night, indeed.