Abraham Lincoln: Abolishment of Slavery Through Dialect
Abraham Lincoln:
The Abolishment of Slavery Through Dialect
Abraham Lincoln was a dialogic rhetorician who seemed intent on prompting others to discussion and action through the power of words. The one great consistency that exists across the rhetoric of Lincoln’s early administration is that, in conversations with friends and critics, in his written correspondence and in his public speeches, he listened, considered, and then replied to the arguments of others.
With the determination to abolish slavery, Abraham Lincoln, practiced law and politics, and served as president of the United States in a society that lacked any modern day theories of race. It is necessary to recognize the enormous odds blacks faced in a society seemingly dedicated to the preservation of white superiority. It is equally important to understand how difficult it was for whites to endorse black freedom and equality. To be identified as an abolitionist or a proponent of black rights was not socially or politically expedient. In fact, it was often dangerous.
Young Abe’s first real exposure to human bondage came in 1828, when he was nineteen years old. He and Allen Gentry were hired to float farm produce down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The two youths were mesmerized by the Crescent City, with its fabulous French Quarter and docks lined with steamboats. But they also saw the infamous slave markets of New Orleans, where black men, women, and children were bough and sold like animals. These were sights that Lincoln would never forget.
Growth is indeed a word often used to describe Lincoln 's position on race and slavery in a state, which had little sympathy for ex-slaves even if it had little support for slavery. Lincoln neither grew up in nor lived in a racially tolerant society. Historian Richard N. Current wrote:
There were black laws in Illinois indeed-laws that denied the Negro the vote and deprived him of other rights. Illinois in those days was a Jim Crow state. That was
The Abolishment of Slavery Through Dialect
Abraham Lincoln was a dialogic rhetorician who seemed intent on prompting others to discussion and action through the power of words. The one great consistency that exists across the rhetoric of Lincoln’s early administration is that, in conversations with friends and critics, in his written correspondence and in his public speeches, he listened, considered, and then replied to the arguments of others.
With the determination to abolish slavery, Abraham Lincoln, practiced law and politics, and served as president of the United States in a society that lacked any modern day theories of race. It is necessary to recognize the enormous odds blacks faced in a society seemingly dedicated to the preservation of white superiority. It is equally important to understand how difficult it was for whites to endorse black freedom and equality. To be identified as an abolitionist or a proponent of black rights was not socially or politically expedient. In fact, it was often dangerous.
Young Abe’s first real exposure to human bondage came in 1828, when he was nineteen years old. He and Allen Gentry were hired to float farm produce down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The two youths were mesmerized by the Crescent City, with its fabulous French Quarter and docks lined with steamboats. But they also saw the infamous slave markets of New Orleans, where black men, women, and children were bough and sold like animals. These were sights that Lincoln would never forget.
Growth is indeed a word often used to describe Lincoln 's position on race and slavery in a state, which had little sympathy for ex-slaves even if it had little support for slavery. Lincoln neither grew up in nor lived in a racially tolerant society. Historian Richard N. Current wrote:
There were black laws in Illinois indeed-laws that denied the Negro the vote and deprived him of other rights. Illinois in those days was a Jim Crow state. That was
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