1. Loewen Chapter 6: John Brown and Abraham Lincoln
Courtney Krebs & Marlene Williams

2. 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

3. 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
American History a Survey
420 – “a few began to advocate violence” “bloody uprisings”
451 – “fervent opponent”, “considered himself an instrument of God’s will to destroy slavery” “After the events in Lawrence…in one night murdered 5 pro-slavery settlers, leaving their mutilated bodies to discourage other supporters of slavery from entering Kansas”
460-1 – “antislavery zealot whos bloody actions in Kansas had inflamed the crises there, staged an even more dramatic episode, this time in the south itself.” Event convinced white southerners they could not live safely in the union , “And John Brown’s raid suggested to them that the North was no committed to producing just such an insurrection” They were wrong in assuming the raid had the support of the North. Wndell Phillips and Ralph Waldo began to glorify Brown as a saint and martyr to the the North.

4. 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)
Kind of agrees with Loewen’s argument that they show Brown in a fairly negative light however these books also explain or show how he was also seen positively.

5. 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.
American History A Survey – (462) “radical enough to please antislavery faction…but conservative enough to satisfy many ex-whigs”
(468) Committed to saving the union
(477) Lincoln “Moved Boldly”
(478) “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.
(501) “the war produced Abraham Lincoln’s epochal Emancipation Proclamation…”
(511) “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.”

6. 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)

7. 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 & 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”.”

8. Gettysburg Address Loewen Textbooks
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.
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.
American History A Survey – Does not contain any mention of the Gettysburg Address – only mentions the significance of the battle.

9. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
Loewen
Textbooks
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.
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.
American the People and the Dream – Contains the entirety of the speech along with intro and discussion questions
American History a Survey – has a few words when talking about the causes of the civil wary “”all knew”, he said, that slavery “was somehow the cause of the war”” but this is all of this address.

10. 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.