| Nettles said: You guys know that Abraham Lincoln wanted to send Africans back to Africa right? |
Here is the full quote along with other excerpts from the speech:
"If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,—to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days".
As you mentioned Lincoln's first instinct was to send the Black people back to Africa. However, he understood that such a plan was not practical and that they would not be able to live there and sustain themselves.
"What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon".
In this statement he mentions that he would not hold anyone in slavery but he did not have adaquate answers to common questions such as freeing them but not extending rights to them would be in their best interest. However, he admits that he does not have all the answers and thus he cannot criticize people for bringing up these questions and making their own points.
"What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals".
Here Lincoln mentions that his opinion was that black people could not be made poltically or socially equal. Moreover, he goes on to say that the electorate would not support him even if his opinion and the most just option was to grant them full rights.
"It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South".
Lincoln concludes that a system of emnacipation should be adopted but due to the uncertainties and political realities he would fault the South for adopting such a system at a more slow pace.
Going through this entire speech, one would be mistaken to assume that Lincoln promised the electorate that he would free the slaves and then deport them to the South. Rather his point was that his initial instinct was to free and deport but through further thought he realized that such a plan would not be sensible. Through this speech we can see how Lincoln was attempting to thoughtfully balance morality, practicality and political reality. He also acknowledged the complexities of the situation and realized that there were no simple answers. At the end of the speech he does mention however that gradual progress does need to be made and freedoms needed to be granted. In 1860s, Lincoln expressed his desire to extend voting rights to black individuals.
You cannot compare Lincoln to Trump in this situation, because while the former realized that his own primal instincts of deporting former slaves would not be practical (and he would later advocate granting them voting rights) the latter outright believes in deporting 11+ million people. If Americans were to apply Lincoln's balanced thought process to the illigal immigration situation today then they would be advocating an option for providing a pathway to citizenship for the people already here while at the same time working to increase border security and mandating that employers use systems such as e-verify.
