Lincoln's Argument Against Slavery

The idea of slavery often reminded Lincoln of his childhood. As a kid, he was subjected to the patriarchal relationship between a father and son. Whatever labor Lincoln had done, he was obligated to give all fruits of it to his father. This was the fundamental concept of slavery so Lincoln naturally grew a disdain for it. Also, Lincoln had a deep reverence for the Founding Fathers and the documents they wrote up. To him, the country had to be upheld to the high standards that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution set. Lincoln interpreted the document as clearly anti slavery. Slavery was never mentioned because the Founding Fathers knew it was an evil that would taint the integrity of the documents. Also, he believed that they

had every intention of allowing slavery to become extinct. Slavery had no true place in America.
Frederick Douglass obviously had his own reasons for hating slavery. For one, he was one and had to experience the true atrocities subjected onto him by his masters. Also, like Lincoln, Douglass had a thirst for knowledge. He taught himself how to read and valued education. Slavery tainted the reputation of America by devaluing education. Douglass believed “slavery made ignorance a virtue and literacy a crime”, which is an obviously backwards and foolish idea. Slavery not only degraded slaves but it degraded slave masters as well. Decent whites who became slaveholders were tarnished by cruelty and an abuse of power. Douglass hated slavery as a whole and believed it has absolutely no place in America so he did not accept restricting its expansion, unlike Lincoln. Technically, allowing slavery in some slaves and not others was like allowing murder and rape in some states and not others. Slavery was not a separate crime, all the crimes committed within the institution of slavery still had to be recognized. And initially, Douglass did not agree with the Founding Fathers. He took their intentions very seriously and deemed them just as bad as the proslavery politicians that existed in his time. To Douglass, the right to life and liberty did not include blacks. He hated slavery so much because he felt like the very country he was born in allowed it. In a way, he was betrayed which grew an even deeper disdain for the institution.
In the beginnings of both Lincoln and Douglass’ political career, the only thing they had in common was their hatred for slavery. Their opinions on the institution and the country’s efforts to abolish or contain the institution differed greatly.