James Horton says anti-slavery views made it 'not easy to be Lincoln'
Historian James Horton said Wednesday that Abraham Lincoln’s iconic status as the man who helped save the Union and end slavery doesn’t always convey the complexity of the 16th president’s dilemma.
“In the 21st century, we don’t sometimes understand how difficult it was to even think about bringing slavery to an end,” said Horton, IWU Founders’ Day convocation speaker and a member of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission,
Slavery was institutionalized for more than two centuries in America before the Civil War, he said.
In the 1850s and ’60s, a politician who didn’t favor slavery had a difficult time. For example, Lincoln widely is considered to be the best U.S. president, but he won less than 40 percent of the popular vote in the 1860 election.
“It was not easy to be Abraham Lincoln, especially during the mid-19th century,” said Horton, who has worked at the Smithsonian Institution and with The History Channel.
On Wednesday, he focused on “Abraham Lincoln: Slavery and the Civil War.” But his talk covered more than the 1860s. Horton’s multimedia lecture reached back to the 1600s, covered presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and worked its way to Lincoln’s administration....
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“In the 21st century, we don’t sometimes understand how difficult it was to even think about bringing slavery to an end,” said Horton, IWU Founders’ Day convocation speaker and a member of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission,
Slavery was institutionalized for more than two centuries in America before the Civil War, he said.
In the 1850s and ’60s, a politician who didn’t favor slavery had a difficult time. For example, Lincoln widely is considered to be the best U.S. president, but he won less than 40 percent of the popular vote in the 1860 election.
“It was not easy to be Abraham Lincoln, especially during the mid-19th century,” said Horton, who has worked at the Smithsonian Institution and with The History Channel.
On Wednesday, he focused on “Abraham Lincoln: Slavery and the Civil War.” But his talk covered more than the 1860s. Horton’s multimedia lecture reached back to the 1600s, covered presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and worked its way to Lincoln’s administration....