Loewen Chapter 6:
John Brown and Abraham Lincoln
Courtney Krebs & Marlene Williams
Textbooks
American History A Survey 10th Edition
By Alan Brinkley
1999
America: The People And the Dream
Volume I: The Early Years
By Divine, Breen, Fredrickson & Williams
1992
A Call to Freedom
Stuckey Salvucci
John Brown
Loewen’s Argument
Treatment of Brown has changed in
American history textbooks over
time.
Perfectly Sane  Insane 
Regained Some Sanity
Pottawatomie, Kansas & Harpers
Ferry, Virginia
Eight books negative, Nine books
openly hostile
Textbooks
American History a Survey
“a few began to advocate violence” (420)
Brown described as a “fervent opponent” to slavery and” considered himself
an instrument of God’s will to destroy slavery” (451)
Windell Phillips and Ralph Waldo began to glorify Brown as a saint and
martyr to the the North.
American: P&D
“a militant abolitionist” Brown believed that God had called him to carry
out a war against slavery. (428)
Discusses the uproar it led to in the states and cautions and violence that
spread
Congressman Brooks (antislavery) condemned the south for spreading slavery
West
Picture of John Brown in positive light he is going to jail and stops to kiss a
little black baby by the door---caption explains that this is an illustration of
how some northerners and slaves felt sympathy toward Brown (432)
Abraham Lincoln
Loewen’s Argument
Textbooks describe Abraham Lincoln with sympathy,
but they also minimize his ideas, especially on the
subject of race.
Most of our textbooks say nothing about Lincoln’s
internal debate about slavery.
If they did show it, students would see that speakers
modify their ideas to appease and appeal to different
audiences, so we cannot simply take their statements
literally.
Textbooks
American History a Survey
“radical enough to please antislavery faction…but conservative
enough to satisfy many ex-Whigs” (462)
“Conservatives favored a slower, more gradual, and, they
believed, less disruptive process for ending slavery; in the
beginning, at least, they had the support of the president.
Despite Lincoln’s cautious view of emancipation momentum
began to gather behind it early in the war.” (478)
“President Lincoln’s sympathies lay with the Moderates and
Conservatives of his party…
…Lincoln was not uninterested in the fate of the freedmen, but
he was willing to defer questions about their future for the sake
of rapid reunification...
…hoped to to extend suffrage to those blacks who were educated,
owned property, and had served in the Union army…
…The circumstances of Lincoln's death earned him immediate
martyrdom.” (511)
America P&D
Page 431 describes Lincoln as a skillful lawyer
Lincoln Douglas debate
Lincoln did not favor ending slavery in existing states but wanted to stop its
expansion.
Thought of slavery as amoral issue
Page 456 & 626-7 Emancipation Proclamation
opposed slavery but was not an abolitionist
did not want to anger the slave states
believed in gradual emancipation by states voluntarily
did not think free blacks and whites could get along- so tried to find other countries
public pressure to end slavery
did not want it to seem as an act of desperation for the union
made clear that “slaves were being freed to help the war not for humanitarian
reasons”
“the cause of freedom for blacks and the cause of restoring the union had finally become
one and the same. Despite his earlier concerns, president Lincoln would be remembered
throughout history as the “great emancipator”.”
Gettysburg Address
Loewen
Lincoln’s three
paragraphs at Gettysburg
comprise one of the most
important speeches ever
giving in America and
take up only a fourth of a
page in the textbooks that
include them.
Five books do not even
mention the speech while
others only provide the
last sentence.
Textbooks
American History does
not contain any mention
of the Gettysburg Address
while America P&D gives
the entire text along with
an introduction and
discussion questions.
A Call to Freedom also
contains the entire text
along with an explanation
of the importance of the
speech.
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
Address
Loewen
Even worse than the
treatment of the Gettysburg
Address is Lincoln’s Second
Inaugural Address.
Only 1 text includes most of
the speech, 7 restrict
quotation to the final phrase,
and ten ignore the speech
altogether.
Important because explains
the reasons and some impacts
of the Civil War.
Textbooks
American History has a few
words from the speech when
speaking of the war… “all
knew”, he said, that slavery “was
somehow the cause of the
war””.
America P&D contains the
entirety of the speech along
with discussion questions.
Conclusion
Loewen argues that “Yet, we in America, whose antiracist
idealist are admired around the globe, seem to have lost these
men and women as heroes. Our textbooks need to present
them in such a way that we might again value our own
idealism.”
The textbooks we studied mostly follow Loewen’s argument.
Some leave out important historical primary sources and
portray Brown as probably crazy. Although Lincoln’s personal
views on slavery are debatable, these textbooks do not talk
about his views or internal debate.
Our overall impression is that textbooks do not make a point
to mention the strong antiracist sentiment that existed in
America during the civil war.