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Ashley Mitchell / The Dartmouth Staff
Ashley Mitchell / The Dartmouth Staff
Although Abraham Lincoln has gone down in history as a staunch anti-slavery advocate, the 16th president had to find a middle ground between his personal belief in racial equality and the racist sentiments of many Americans during this presidency, according to three College professors in a panel discussion on "Lincoln and his Legacy." Contradictions between Lincoln's public actions and private opinions should be viewed in light of the time in which the president lived, the panelists said in the Rockefeller Center on Monday.
Lincoln's ability to "accommodate and even blur the differences" between varying opinions regarding slavery helped to make him a "skillful politician in an internally divided country," panelist and history professor Robert Bonner said.
Lincoln viewed the question of racial equality as separate from that of slavery, history professor Leslie Butler said.