Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream

Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream by Bennett Jr., Lerone. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780874850024.

Beginning with the argument that the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free African American slaves, this dissenting view of Lincolns greatness surveys the presidents policies, speeches, and private utterances and concludes that he had little real interest in abolition. Pointing to Lincolns support for the fugitive slave laws, his friendship with slave-owning senator Henry Clay, and conversations in which he entertained the idea of deporting slaves in order to create an all-white nation, the book, concludes that the president was a racist at heart—and that the tragedies of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era were the legacy of his shallow moral vision.