Why Honest Abe wouldn't have voted for Obama

When Chicago's U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the corruption charges against Gov. Milorad Blagojevich "would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," Fitzgerald wasn't exactly right.

Abraham Lincoln had actually begun tossing and turning in his grave a month earlier when Barack Obama was elected president, and had been twitching since Obama was seated as a U.S. senator in 2005.

The fifth grade American history version of Lincoln, which is what most of us carry through adulthood, is that of Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator. But 200 years after his birth, time and political expediency have dulled the reality of Abraham Lincoln.

Were he alive in 2008, Lincoln wouldn't have voted for Barack Obama - at least not if you take Honest Abe at his own words.

In 1858, Lincoln was fighting to win the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. This is the same seat that Barack Obama recently held; the same one that Milorad was impeached for trying to sell; the same seat that Roland Burris now holds; and the same seat that Burris just remembered was discussed in the same conversation as a campaign donation via Blago's brother.

But all those were just footnotes-to-come in 200 years, when Lincoln and Stephan A. Douglas held a series of campaign debates across Illinois. Much of their back and forth concerned slavery.

On Sept. 18, 1858, during a debate in downstate Charleston, Mr. Lincoln said: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races-that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Not only did Lincoln believe that blacks shouldn't hold office, he didn't want them to vote. He said that in front of 12,000 people attending the fourth debate with Douglas.

While it is never easy and probably not even fair to judge Lincoln by 2009 racial attitudes and standards, it is also unreasonable for Barack Obama to be morphed into a modern-day Abe. And Mr. Obama is as responsible as anyone for putting himself under a stovepipe hat.

From the use of a Springfield backdrop for his presidential coming out two years ago, to his frequent Lincoln citations, to using the Lincoln Bible for his swearing in and Lincoln's Inaugural dinner menu, Obama has purposely tried to make the impression that he is the second coming of Honest Abe. But it is the modern-day hero image of Lincoln as the "Great Emancipator" that Obama has adopted, not the historically accurate picture of Lincoln the politician.

We should not forget that while Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves, that was not his primary goal. His objective was to save the Union. As President Lincoln put it: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

Even after Lincoln was elected president (as a Republican,) he pushed for sending American blacks to Africa, to Liberia or to another colony. At the White House in 1862, President. Lincoln told a group of black community leaders: "Why should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races," Lincoln said.

"Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated" he told them.

There is one area that Messrs. Lincoln and Obama would agree: the size and scope of government. Under Lincoln, the United States expanded centralized government services, programs, controls and taxes. Lincoln created protective tariffs, a centralized banking system and unrestricted corporate welfare.

After the Civil War, Lincoln put in place what amounted to Stimulus I, to re-bankroll the Union.

A century and a half later, a man he wouldn't have voted for, has succeeded in pushing through the nation's Stimulus II.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com