"Abraham Lincoln, while unsurpassed in his devotion to the welfare of the white race, was also in a sense hitherto without example, emphatically, the black mans President: the first to show any respect to their rights as men."

Frederick Douglass, April 25 1865

Does it matter how Lincoln felt about black people?

More important is what he told a group of freemen on his visit to Richmond after it's fall to Union forces:

"Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called masters, you are now as free as I am, and if those that claim to be your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword and bayonet and teach them that you are; for God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Is it fair, is it honest, to continue to quote Lincoln from his comments of 18 Sept 1858, as you & many other anti-racist writers do—& as have countless Neo-Confederates have been doing—while leaving out quotes such as the above?

To deny the possibility that a man who hitherto had very little contact with blacks, free or enslaved, might have evolving views?