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Abraham Lincoln was not a racist person, yet under politics and pressure from the majority of the white population, he was perceived as discriminatory. Abraham Lincoln always gave the people what they desired and wanted to hear even if it meant pushing away his own views. He hated slavery and believed that all men were created equal, including black people, as stated in the US Constitution. Yet in order to please the citizens, he was forced to contradict both that whites were superior to blacks and that blacks where the white’s equal to different groups of people. Lincoln knew that white citizens looked down on Negroes, thinking they were superior intellectually, and in general. Lincoln himself once stated in one of his debates with Stephen Douglas, “I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position, (Speech at Ottawa, IL, August 21, 1858)” Yet this was only a scheme to