Is it true that most U.S. Presidents were racist, sexist by today's standards?

Question

I've come across a number of quotes from presidents, founding fathers, and others, that seem to support this. I'm not passing judgement either way, but I've even heard that Abraham Lincoln had no intention of creating a multiracial society, and instead intended that blacks be repatriated to Africa. Even the most anti slavery presidents tended to not believe in equal rights for blacks, or natives for that matter. Also many Presidents courted and married underage girls. Is this factual or fiction? Would candidates who held such views today even be electable?

Answer 1

Yes. They probably were.

I just taught Lincoln's Inaugural Address in my English class. He was Republican at the time, and the Republican _party_ always made it clear that they wanted to abolish slavery. But he himself - before the election and the war - had no intention to abolish slavery (only to stop its spreading to the new central territories) or to offer blacks citizenship. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's opposition, often smeared him as a sort of *****-lover and called the party the "black Republican party" (these were insults in the late 1850s-early 1860s because blacks were not considered humans).

In the Inaugural Address, he is careful to emphasize to the slave-owners in the audience that he was not going to change anything; everything would stay just the same as it was. No uprooting of slaves; no campaign against plantation owners.

A problem had arisen regarding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and Lincoln addresses it in the speech. Northern state authorities and police who were appealed to by slave-hunters to help catch runaway slaves just didn't want to do it. Northerners didn't care about the blacks among them; they didn't want to help catch them or expend large amounts of time and energy enforcing the Fugitive Slave law. (So if plantation owners hadn't dispatched their own hired slave-hunters to search out and capture slaves, none would have gotten caught; no one in the north really cared.) Lincoln squirms out of this one and implicitly defends the tired northern state authorities. He says: "There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which authority it is done."

The Civil War was not fought for the lofty goal of "freeing the slaves," like we're taught in middle school. It was fought to keep the country together. But it nonetheless changed many people's opinions about black citizenship - including Lincoln's - and forced them to realized that, hey, we were sick monsters for treating people like animals.

Answer 2

Oh these men where far from being any kind of Saints .
They abused women and slaves and workers and after the civil war supported separate but equal down to the last days in the sixties and still to this day only meet the requirements of the law and do what they can to avoid equal opportunity laws that where designed to integrate all people into the work place .
They meet this by numbers only and not opportunity . Wall mart may have to hire minorities but you will find very few of them in any position of authority over white people .

Everyone I am sure can point out the one guy in town who is black who is the assistant manager at a grocery or chain of convenient stores but one in three should have a manager and cashier on shift and this just is not the case .

I have been in the stores with the bullet proof glass where 99% of the customers are minority's and a white man is sitting behind the glass . Sell colt 45 blunts snacks and gas . Or worse some foreigner Who charges $3.00 for a 22oz when every other place charges $1.50 .
Racism and sexism is alive and thriving in America today .
I never mentioned the fact that women earn anyplace from 6-25% less then men do . The government statistics are for government jobs which do pay equivalent wages with women earning only 1-3% less then male counter parts . Imagine that this country is a sack of lies waiting for people to open up and correct .

What was it six months ago some 83 year old blind woman in a wheelchair was gunned down in her own home by police in atlanta . Not before she managed to shoot one of them . Good for her and if people started shooting the police down more often things would change .
.

Answer 3

Well, nearly EVERYONE was racist and sexist by today's standards.

That all humans are truly human is a remarkably recent "discovery."

There were always a few exceptions, but everyone else said those few people were nuts.

There was a priest, originally with the Spanish forces who conquered Latin America who fought to have the Spanish treat the natives rights -- let me get that book and look him up -- here he is

Bartolome de Las Casas

You could look him up. He was amazing, for his time.

"Underage" ain't what it used to be. Marriage at 16 was not uncommon, often to older men. Seems a bit yucky to us, now, but childbirth was more dangerous, and I think women's child-bearing years were shorter.

But, about the rest, well, we live in more enlightened times, which I find heartening.

When people say that the world is going to h*ll, and everything's worse now that it used to be, this is one of the things I think about.

We're not going downhill in all ways; in important ways, we've never been better.

Not that all those people were horrible people; they were people of their times, as are we all -- but their times had a lot of false, and damaging, ideas.

Glad you live now?

As a woman, I am!

Answer 4

It's true. And would you be surprised to learn that today, many of our Politicians still hold those same views?

Just because they are not allowed to speak otherwise, doesn't mean they are suddenly in love with women and minorities.

This is one of the reasons I support FREE SPEECH. I want to know what's in the heart of a man or woman.

Answer 5

George W. Bush

Answer 6

Most likely. Nixon sure didn't hold back the "N" word in those Whitehouse tapes.

Go big Red Go

Answer 7

you're right on this.
I heard that the American dream would be "one black guy swimming back to Africa with a Jew under each arm",
that shows that not all the people are nice people

Answer 8

Presidents, politicians, ALL AMERICANS were like that back then. It was just the way it was. Yes the Presidents were guilty of it, but so was everyone else.

Answer 9

probably but it wasn't considered racist or sexist then cuz any1 who wasn't a white man had NO rights ....

Answer 10

You are correct sir