[idlewords]

Really you have no idea how Lincoln felt about slavery, nor how those feelings changed with time. His public statements are the carefully crafted words of a master politician.

For a guy with no interest in freeing slaves, he sure freed a lot of slaves.

[achievingApathy]

"I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race."

-- Someone who might know a little bit about being a politician

[tptacek]

This is fun and all but it has nothing to do with my point.

Someone upthread provided a short list of African Americans who were murdered as a result of their notability.

In an attempt to refute the argument that to be a notable black in America is dangerous, Abraham Lincoln was introduced as an example of a notable white leader who was killed. There were any number of white leaders that could have been introduced as counterexamples, but, amusingly, the commenter chose one who was murdered because of white enmity towards blacks.

The question of whether Lincoln had any ambivalence about freeing slaves has little bearing on the question of why he was murdered. Had Lincoln not emancipated the slaves, he would not have been murdered. His death clearly belongs in the tally of "people killed because it's dangerous to be a successful black person in America".