Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation He comes to us in the mists of legend as a kind of homespun Socrates, brimming with prarie wit and folk wisdom. There is a counterlegend of Lincoln, one shared ironically enough by many white Southerners and certain black Americans of our time. Neither of these views, of course, reveals much about the man who really lived--legend and political interpretations seldom do. As a man, Lincoln was complex, many-sided, and …showed first 75 words of 1458 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1458 total…lest he be branded an abolitionist, opposed to Negro political rights lest his political career be jeopardized, convinced that only the future could remove slavery in America. But perhaps it was Lincoln himself who summed up his journey to the emancipation - his own as well as that of the slaves. “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history...The fiery trail through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”