February 12th 2024 marks the 215th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, who led the country through four years of a bloody and bitter war, a war fought to end slavery and to maintain a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

This last week I had the opportunity to speak to two 5th grade classes. Since they had already covered California history in the 4th grade, and were currently studying U.S. history, I figured a good topic would be the issue of slavery in California, as demonstrated in the life of Alvin Coffey.

We tend to think of slavery and the American Civil War as events that took place “back East”, but these issues touched California too. People in California came from every state in the nation and from all over the world, and they brought their customs and prejudices with them. Slavery was a hot issue in California.

Fifth grade students, kids who are 10 years old or so, find it hard to wrap their brains around the idea that some people thought it right to enslave other human beings. They know it is wrong, and they live in a world of such diversity that it doesn’t make sense to them. President Lincoln would approve.

Lincoln thought long and hard about the issue of slavery. He had such clarity of thought and expression that he was able to explain the problem in terms that any adult or 5th grader can understand. In the 1850s he wrote out his thoughts on a fragment of paper, using the reasoning he heard around him from proponents of the slave system.

If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?” Lincoln wrote. “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.

You do not mean color exactly?—You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.

As quoted by Heather Cox Richardson, “Letter from an American” https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-11-2024

Lincoln saw clearly that if we give up the principle of equality before the law, we have given away our own freedom. We have put ourselves at the mercy of any person who decides that they are smarter, stronger, richer, or more worthy in any way than we are, and are willing to enforce that notion.

So– Happy Birthday to President Abraham Lincoln, and may we never forget the principles he lived and died to defend.