Fact Check-Abraham Lincoln quote about slavery is missing context

Fact Check-Abraham Lincoln quote about slavery is missing context

(Reuters) - A quote by the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, has been cropped of its wider context and is being misleadingly circulated online. It is accompanied by another quote attributed to the Confederate general Robert E. Lee, which has been disputed in the past though several experts told Reuters it is similar to remarks Lee did supposedly make.

The posts ( here , here ) attribute to Lincoln the words: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it” and to Lee the quote: “There is a terrible war coming and these young men who have never seen war cannot wait for it to happen, but I can tell you, I wish that I owned every slave in the south, for I would free them all to avoid this war.” They are accompanied by the caption, “Two quotes you won’t see in school.”

In the American Civil War (1861-65), eleven southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America where slavery was protected. Lincoln was the President of the Union made up of northern states, which ultimately won the war ( here , here ).

LINCOLN

Lincoln did write the words in the social media posts in a letter to American journalist and former New York Tribune editor, Horace Greeley, on Aug. 22, 1862, as seen on the Library of Congress website (here) and transcribed here (see middle of paragraph three).

However, the isolated quote circulating online is “very misleading out of context,” Michael Burlingame, holder of the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at University of Illinois Springfield (here), told Reuters via email.

The full sentence in the letter makes it clear that not freeing slaves is just one policy option Lincoln is presenting in the letter alongside the idea of freeing all slaves: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

Lincoln had already chosen the last option (freeing some slaves and leaving others) in the Emancipation Proclamation, which he proposed to his cabinet one month before writing this letter, but had not yet made that public, as explained to Reuters via email by Christian McWhirter, Lincoln Historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (here) and Harold Holzer, co-chairman of The Lincoln Forum and former chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and co-chair of the U. S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (here).

McWhirter concurred that the quote does come from the letter to Greeley but said it is better understood within its historical and written context.

He said that in the letter, which is highly complicated and has long been argued about, Lincoln is “asserting his position that his primary duty as president during the Civil War is to save the Union,” in response to an article by Greeley criticizing him for not taking more direct action against slavery.

“By asserting that union is his primary responsibility (and therefore primary goal), Lincoln is trying to put anti-slavery efforts in the broader context of his duties and the North’s war aims. He is not, as many have argued, stating that he prefers to take no action against slavery,” said McWhirter.

Both McWhirter and Holzer said that this public letter was aimed at convincing the Northern public, few of whom were abolitionists, that attacking slavery was a viable option because emancipation would be a valuable way of restoring the Union.

LEE

Several experts told Reuters that the quote attributed to Lee about wanting to free all the slaves in the south to avoid war is probably fabricated but inspired by comments he made.

John Reeves, historian and author of The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee (here , john-reeves.com/author) told Reuters, “Robert E. Lee never said the quote as it appeared in the Facebook image. He did however make similar remarks on separate occasions in 1861.”

Allen Guelzo ( jmp.princeton.edu/node/5221 , here ), civil war historian and author of Robert E. Lee: A Life, told Reuters by email, “I do not recognize the Lee quote as a comment, spoken or written, by Robert E. Lee. However, a significant portion of Lee s correspondence (which was voluminous) is still in private hands, and this statement may have originated in one such source.”

Guelzo, Reeves and Ty Seidule, historian and author of Robert E. Lee and Me ( here , here ) said that the quotation is similar to a comment Lee supposedly made to Francis Blair, an advisor to Lincoln, in April 1861.

The comment is laid out in the third volume of James Ford Rhodes’ History of the United States Since the Compromise of 1850, (here) published in 1895, and can be seen in footnote three here . It says, “Lee said that he was devoted to the Union. He said, among other things, that he would do everything in his power to save it , and that if he owned all the negroes in the South, he would be willing to give them up and make the sacrifice of the value of every one of them to save the Union.”

Another account in A.L. Long, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, written in 1886, seen at the bottom of page 92 here , quotes Lee as having said, “If I owned the four millions of slaves, I would cheerfully sacrifice them to the preservation of the Union, but to lift my hand against my own State and people is impossible.”

Reeves pointed to an account of an interview by William Allan with Lee in February 1868 (here), which claims Lee “said as far as the negro was concerned he would willingly give up his own (400) for peace.”

Seidule noted that these are not contemporary sources, adding, “from my research there is no contemporary account of Lee saying the phrase.”

Reeves also said, “Lee’s rhetoric on slavery, however, did not match his actions as someone who was managing 200 slaves at the time and was fighting to keep them working on his family’s estates in Virginia.”

VERDICT

Missing context. Lincoln did say those words but they have been taken out of context. According to historical accounts, Lee probably said something similar to the quotation in the social media posts.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .