Last week, Nick Fuentes went viral for saying that he stands with Lincoln, that it’s the Confederates’ fault that we have a black problem in the U.S., and blaming them for starting the American Civil War, which he deemed a “brother war.” He claimed that Lincoln would have sent them back to Africa if John Wilkes Booth had not assassinated him. This is extremely inaccurate.
Lincoln’s Real Thoughts on the Black Problem
Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a based white nationalist. His thoughts on race were actually quite moderate for the time, with Lincoln flip-flopping his position on race based on when it was convenient (similar to Fuentes himself).
When people say Lincoln wanted to send blacks back to Africa, they usually point to Lincoln’s membership in the American Colonization Society, a group of American patriots who wanted to repatriate blacks to Africa. Liberia was founded as a result of the efforts of the American Colonization Society, and Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, is named after James Monroe, one of their most prominent supporters. There is also Lincoln’s quote from the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates:
“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…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.” — Abraham Lincoln
While Lincoln was a member of the ACS and did make those statements, it was not out of genuine serious support for repatriation, but as a shrewd political maneuver. Many of the Republicans that wound up supporting the 14th and 15th amendments as well as Reconstruction had supported repatriation a decade prior.
Many people that argue Lincoln was a white nationalist also point to Abraham Lincoln bringing blacks into the White House for the first time, telling them to preach colonization to their fellow blacks, and his limited support to find an area to repatriate blacks to. This ignores the reality that Lincoln, once again, made these moves to suppress opponents that called him a “Black Republican.” It must be remembered Lincoln that allowed hundreds of thousands of colored troops to be incorporated into the Union Army (mostly for service in non-combat roles), and he also called for giving blacks suffrage and citizenship in his last speech. John Wilkes Booth witnessed the speech and told a friend:
“That means NIGGEr Citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.” — John Wilkes Booth
Booth didn’t assassinate Lincoln in opposition to repatriating blacks; he did it out of fear that Lincoln would give blacks citizenship, which ultimately came to pass.
Lincoln wasn’t some based, anti-black gigachad. He was a shrewd politician that flip-flopped his public positions to gain power; not a pro-White figure by any stretch of the imagination.
What Caused the American Civil War?
Nick Fuentes went viral not only for his claim that Lincoln was pro-white, but for saying the Confederacy started the Civil War. While it is true that it was a brother war in the most literal sense, it was not started by the Confederacy, but by Abraham Lincoln and his administration, who sought to consolidate all of America under pro-black tyranny.
The seven original states that formed the Confederate States of America, along with the Arizona Territory, legally seceded from the Union after Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 election, motivated by his association with radical abolitionists. Radical abolitionism, with the terror of Bleeding Kansas and John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, stoked fear among white Southerners that an abolitionist president would persecute white Southerners and free blacks to run rampant. Because of the fears stoked by abolitionists, who went so far as to burn copies of the Constitution, the states of South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas decided to leave the Union to preserve what they saw as the American way of life.
Lincoln used the Confederate seizure of Fort Sumter—a seizure of a fort in Confederate territory that resulted in zero Union deaths from the Confederate attack—as justification for a full-on military invasion of the South that only triggered more states to leave the Union and resulted in the deaths of more Americans than in any other war we’ve fought. Lincoln started this war in his attempt to make the U.S. an authoritarian state, and his assault on the South also exposes a hypocrisy of his. When the Mexican-American War started, when Mexican soldiers killed 14 White American soldiers on disputed territory, Abraham Lincoln opposed justified American retaliation against Mexico. But when Union soldiers were killed by the Confederates in a Confederate attack on disputed territory, Lincoln saw this as justification for the bloodiest war in American history.
Why Groypers Actually Love Lincoln
Aside from Abraham Lincoln constantly flip-flopping his position on the Black Question, just like Nick Fuentes, there might be two other reasons the groypers admire Lincoln so much:
- The large presence of Irish Catholic immigrants in the Union army.
- The fact that Lincoln wanted to turn the U.S. into an authoritarian state, paralleling the groypers’ contempt for American culture and history.
Groypers love Lincoln not because he was some based white nationalist strongman, but because of his strong favoritism to political Catholicism and his authoritarian tendencies, such as his unconstitutional arrest of political opponents and suspension of habeas corpus. The groypers would love nothing more than to repeat these evils should they come to power, which will fortunately never come to pass.
