REASSESSMENT OF LINCOLN

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31776, 5 September 1968, Page 21

REASSESSMENT OF LINCOLN

Professor Writing Book A Canterbury University professor of history is writing a book which questions the traditional view of Abraham Lincoln as the great emancipator. He is Professor A. A. Conway, who presented a paper on that subject to a conference of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association in Sydney last week. Professor Conway said that his book would question whether emancipation of slaves in the Southern States was worth a bloody civil war. Had it not been for Lincoln, he said, there might not have been a civil war at all. Emancipation of the Negro had not been achieved yet and the American Negro was now tending to shrug Lincoln off as the great emancipator. Today Lincoln was being quoted by the white supremacists, and was regarded by the angry “black power” people as very much a white supremacist himself. Professor Conway said his paper was received with “a fair amount of agreement” at the conference, but added

that it was easier for nonAmericans to agree with his reassessment than for Americans to agree He hopes to complete his book in 18 months.