Wholesale Black Man's President by Michael Burlingame

[Pegasus Books] Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president” as well as “the first who rose above the prejudice of his times and country.” This narrative history of Lincoln’s personal interchange with Black people over the course his career reveals a side of the sixteenth president that, until now, has not been fully explored or understood. In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Lincoln's assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president," the "first to show any respect for their rights as men.” To justify that description, Douglass pointed not just to Lincoln's official acts and utterances, like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Second Inaugural Address, but also to the president’s own personal experiences with Black people. Referring to one of his White House visits, Douglass said: "In daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White House, Mr. Lincoln was sayin