Topics Race

Question Abraham Lincoln once made this argument that white people have no right to enslave black people: "You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own." If I understand Lincoln correctly, he is arguing that because some white people have darker skin than other white people, skin color is not sufficient justification for slavery. Isn't this a fallacious conceptual slippery slope argument? Let's say we have three men. The first has only a few dollars, the second is a multi-millionaire, and the third is a billionaire. The third one is richer than the second. But that does not change the fact the the first and second are both rich and the first is not. In the same way, it might be true that some white people have darker skin than others. But this doesn't change the fact that there are white people and black people (as well as borderline cases.) And it doesn't undermine the premise that white people have the right to enslave black people. Am I misunderstanding Lincoln? Or is Lincoln's famous argument a bad one?

Accepted:
November 13, 2008

Comments

First, I need to applaud your engagement with this argument. Many people would hesitate to criticize, simply because they agree with Lincoln's conclusion. But, as you implicitly note, whether we agree with the conclusion is quite independent of whether the argument is any good.

The question worth asking, I take it, is why Lincoln thinks the justification for slavery rests upon the claim that "the lighter [have] the right to enslave the darker". Certainly you are right that this does not, and need not, follow from the thought that whites have the right to enslave blacks. But, on the other hand, it is so obvious that it doesn't follow that it seems uncharitable to Lincoln to suppose he thought it did---which is not, of course, to say he didn't think it did. What it means is that we ought now to search for some other reason he might have thought that the justification involved "lightness" rather than whiteness.

That's an historical question, and I'm in no position to answer it. But here's one line of thought one might consider. Suppose we agree that there are white folks and black folks. Suppose we grant, moreover, that one of them has the right to enslave the other. Which? The situation seems symmetrical at this point. So we need some reason difference, and perhaps Lincoln is suggesting that many people thought it was relative lightness of skin color.

It is, by the way, already questionable whether there are white folks and black folks in the sense racists suppose there are. See, for example, Anthony Appiah, “The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race.” Critical Inquiry 12 (1985), and many other writings along the same lines.