Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream [Paperback]

Lerone Bennett Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007

Beginning with the argument that the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free African American slaves, this dissenting view of Lincoln's greatness surveys the president's policies, speeches, and private utterances and concludes that he had little real interest in abolition. Pointing to Lincoln's 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The most systematic, best-researched, and compelling critique of Lincoln's [beliefs about race] that I know of."  —Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

About the Author

Lerone Bennett Jr. is the executive editor emeritus of Ebony magazine and the author of 10 books, including Before the Mayflower, Great Moments in Black History, Pioneers in Protest, The Shaping of Black America, and What Manner of Man, a biography of Martin Luther King. He lives in Chicago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.; 1 edition (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874850029
• ISBN-13: 978-0874850024
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 1.5 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,308,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 49 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Does what a great history book should--gives a different perspective September 17, 2005

By Alan Mills VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Lerone Bennett has accomplished a feat few historians have tried, and at which even fewer have succeded--giving us a new perspective on Abraham lincoln and his presidency.

It is by now well established that the Emancipation Proclamation did not, in fact, free anyone--it applied only to those areas of the Confederacy over which the union exerted no control. However, Bennett takes this well established fact and goes much, much further. By adopting the perspective of the slave, he demonstrates that not only didn't Lincoln free anyone, but he in fact succeeded in postponing freedom for hundreds of thousands of slaves. Prior to the Proclamation, Congress had already enacted the Confiscation Act, which authorized the Army to free the slaves of anyone in rebellion against the United States. the effect of the Proclamation was to stop the Confiscation Act from being enforced--thus relegating every slave in territory conquered by the Union Armies to additional months of slavery.

Further, Bennett makes the compelling case that this was not an inadvertent failing (or a product of necessity) but an intentional strategy by Lincoln. Tracking Lincoln's history from his earliest years as an Illinois legislator, Bennett successfully argues that Lincoln never wanted Blacks to be able to live on equal terms with Whites. Even after the civil war was won, lincoln was still against freeing the slaves; trather, he wanted them deported to Central America or Africa.

As Bennett notes, had such a mass deportation plan for ethnic minorities been proposed in our century, it would properly have been labelled genocide (think of the Serbian plans to remove all Albanians from Kosovo). In other words, from the slaves' perspective, Lincoln believed in ethnic cleansing, not emancipation....

Finally, Bennett disputes the common response that Lincoln had no choice politically. First, he cites numerous private statements of Lincoln to demonstrate that he was, at heart, a racist. Second, he cites the example of many other politicians (e.g., Illinois' own Lymann Trumbull)who took a stand for real equality and emancipation, yet continued to win elections.

Whether you agree with Bennett's analysis or not, it provides an extremely interesting antidote to the Lincoln history machine which routinely labels him our greatest president. As I said at the beginning, one can ask little more of a history book than the ability to make you think about well established history from an entirely different perspective. Read more ›

327 of 410 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln Died for Our Sins? July 30, 2000

By Clay W. Sigg

Format:Hardcover

Once you've read this book, you will never look at Abraham Lincoln in the same way. Bennett writes a polemic here, but it is a well-researched and passionate effort. Although some of his conclusions are suspect, I respect the basic premise of this book, which is that Lincoln was a thorough going racist. Bennett proves that Lincoln's political mentor was Senator Henry Clay, a Kentucky slave owner. Lincoln exhibited racist speech using the pejorative for "Negro" up until the last days of his life. He consistently frequented "black face" comedy shows that denigrated blacks in stereotypical ways. Lincoln always supported fugitive slave laws in Illinois and nationally. The Lincoln described by Bennett completely missed the concept of full emancipation for all African Americans. His lukewarm Emancipation Proclamation was only an attempt to stave off the radical abolitionists who were pressing for full freedom for all Black Americans. Lincoln's Proclamation promised to emancipate blacks in areas currently in rebellion (in which Lincoln had no jurisdiction), and did not emancipate slaves in the areas that had not seceded or were militarily re-occupied. It was a halfway measure designed to obfuscate Lincoln's true agenda, i.e., gradual emancipation and/or deportation for colonization of the native born African American population. Bennett does a credible job showing that Lincoln's speeches, including the Gettysburg Address, were high sounding but did not include African Americans in the great American ideal of freedom for all. "All men are created equal" did not include blacks until Lincoln had been assassinated and was not able to obstruct the final version of the thirteenth amendment.... Eye-opening commentary includes a discussion of how Lincoln pursued the War for two years with pro-slavery Democrat generals like McClellan, Halleck and Pope. Certainly Lincoln's incompetence was responsible for extending the War, causing loss of life for over 650,000 Americans North and South. After reading Bennett, Lincoln comes across as ambitious, indecisive, manipulative, misguided, decidedly racist and desperately craving some kind of long lasting historical legacy. Lincoln was slow coming to grips with the true nature of the War. Lincoln maintained all along that this War was being fought for Union, failing to ever grasp the eventual importance of the slave issue except to use blacks as a political pawn piece to win the war. Lincoln comes across as Machiavellian and insensitive when he finally issues the Emancipation Proclamation only as a military strategy to keep England and France out of the War. However, Bennett fails to address the impact of Lincoln`s call for 75,000 volunteers after he had successfully maneuvered the South into firing on Sumter. Before his call for the 75,000, Virginia and North Carolina had not seceded and were not predisposed to go out. By his actions, he forced these states out and then proceeded to ineptly preside over a botched, bloody, protracted war that could have been averted by more clear headed, adroit diplomacy before the initial Battle of Manassas. Manassas led to Shiloh and, by then, the need to justify somehow the already horrific loss of life. Certainly, once the eleven states seceded, it was the effective end of American slavery because then the slaves could escape across international borders. A slave in Mississippi, once into Indiana, would have been free from pursuit, thus signaling the ultimate demise of the slave system. Lincoln's myopia regarding this key point precipitated not only the war deaths of so many Americans, but also set in motion the raw emotions and scapegoating that marked the brutal "reconstruction" of the South. The pursuit of the war and reconstruction only exascerbated racist feelings that whites felt toward blacks and necessitated the Civil Rights marches led by leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. almost a century after this sad period in American history. Americans today are still dealing with the issues that Lincoln did not deal with during his tenure as president. Bennett's demonization of southern leaders like Robert E. Lee show his lack of overall perspective as to why Southerners fought for their respective states. He doesn't acknowledge that in the South over 90% of the fighting men never owned slaves and were fighting for their families, homes and farms. The Union invader was fighting only for Union, not emancipation (if you listen closely to what Bennett's Lincoln was about). Abraham Lincoln was undoubtedly the deeply flawed, morally shallow politician as Bennett paints him, but Bennett interprets the results only as a twentieth century black militant. When you visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. after reading this book, you will read the Gettysburg Address in a different, less glorious light, and you will sincerely wonder why Lincoln merits such an exalted position on the National Mall. You will realize that the mythologized Lincoln did not die Christ-like for his country's sins. He was not the Man of the Age, but a man who was given the highest position in the American Pantheon because of his tragic death and the position power that he held during a catastrophic historical period (that he helped to make much worse). Another book on Lincoln that has been virtually banned for decades is Edgar Lee Masters' Lincoln The Man, which gives an equally withering testimonial to the man behind the myth, but from the perspective of a Copperhead. I'm giving Forced into Glory five stars for originality and the courage to write and publish it. This book is so "outside the box", it will probably be censured by the mainstream media. Many will speak negatively about it, but will not take the trouble to actually read it and give it a chance. Read more ›

122 of 159 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Side of Lincoln May 17, 2000

By Ted Ficklen

Format:Hardcover

This is the most interesting book about Lincoln since Gore Vidal wrote his novel. Mr Bennett's Lincoln is not the familiar figure of Carl Sandburg's bio, but still believable. Bennett, author of Before The Mayflower, gives us a pragmatic, ambitious, scheming Politician. Lincoln apparently didn't care much for black people personally, enjoyed the racist humor of the time, and may have actually been a racist himself. Bennett makes a convincing case that Lincoln would rather have sent black slaves back to Africa instead of integrating them into post-Civil War society. This is a fascinating portrayal. The only reason I dont give it five stars is that I am not yet sure how to square this with all the other Lincoln books I've read.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading if only for a different viewpoint February 15, 2008

By David Nox VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book refers to the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln very often. There is a free searchable version online (the University of Michigan hosts the site)just search for Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln on google it's right there. Amazon won't let me give the link here.

Was Lincoln a racist? Yes
Was Lincoln a segregationist and white supremacist? Yes

Lincoln said in in his first debate with Douglas in 1858
CW v3 p15-16 of debate

"If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,---to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What [6] next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not."

"I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.... I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position."

He also then said
"I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Abraham Lincoln did have a dream. It was a dream of slowly freeing the slaves and having them leave the USA. Liberia, South America a caribbean island it didn't matter much. If he had the power to do so that is what he would have done. Slavery was a thorn in the side of the USA. It caused other countries who had long done away with it to consider the USA a nation of hypocrites. Were there better men in Lincoln's day? Yes. I don't believe he was as bad as this book tries to paint him.

By todays standards, yes Lincoln was a flawed racist. How else should we judge him? Should we judge him by the standards of his day?
If doing that I would have found him not exceptional. He wasn't an abolitionist and he wasn't a future Klansman in waiting.
Many, many people wanted to resolve slavery.
It should have been resolve with the Constitution. This country should have started as a truly free country but that is another book.
Read this book and please read Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America
Read other books on Lincoln. Then decide for yourself who Lincoln really was. Read more ›