Lincoln favored suffrage only for intelligent Blacks and Black soldiers

Evidence

On April 9, Lee’s army surrendered, ending the Civil War. “Slavery is dead,” announced the Cincinnati Enquirer. “The negro is not, there is our misfortune.” On April 11, Lincoln delivered his reconstruction plans before a sizable crowd in front of the President’s House. In defending the readmission of Louisiana, the president recognized that it “was unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored men.” He expressed his preference for bestowing voting rights on “the very intelligent” Blacks and Black “soldiers.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 624

Categorization

• SHARE: Lincoln’s own limited suffrage position — only ‘the very intelligent’ and soldiers — is the precise historical anchor for the assimilationist-vs-antiracist distinction, relevant to anyone debating Lincoln historiography.