Pictures of Slavery and Anti-Slavery –John Bell Robinson
Source: From Pictures of Slavery and Anti-Slavery: Advantages of Negro Slavery and the Benefits of Negro Freedom Morally, Socially, and Politically Considered by John Bell Robinson, a White pro-slavery spokesperson, Pennsylvania, 1863. God himself has made them for usefulness as slaves, and requires us to employ them as such, and if we betray our trust, and throw them off on their own resources, we reconvert them into barbarians, and we shall be compelled to atone for our sin towards them through all time. Our Heavenly Father has made us to rule, and the negroes to serve, and if we, through a pretended sympathy, or a false philanthropy, right in the face of all common sense and reason, set aside his holy arrangements for the good of mankind and his own glory, and tamper with his laws, we shall be overthrown and eternally degraded, and perhaps made subjects of some other civilized nation. This will be our doom as sure as God lives. Then, will you persevere in such foolery, right in the face of truth and righteousness, with your heaven- daring schemes of wickedness, that will as assuredly overthrow this great and glorious Union as the scheme shall be adopted, or bring about the extermination of the whole negro race in this country ? The laws of nature and nature’s God prohibit the mixing of the two colors into one blood, which ends that plan. Colonization in their native land of all the negroes would be so nearly impracticable, that it will never be done, and no other spot on this green earth will do for them. It would be the height of cruelty and barbarism to send them anywhere else. If they could all be colonized on the coast of Africa, they would fall back into heathenism and barbarism in less than fifty years....
Question:
1. How do Lincoln’s views on slavery compare with John Bell Robinson?
2. Considering all four documents, was Lincoln racist? How do you support your conclusion?