From the opening post:
"The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln. The party came together in the 1850’s when the Whigs refused to take a clear moral stand on slavery. Slavery was the galvanizing issue for the GOP and Abraham Lincoln liberated slaves in America before being assassinated.
The Party of Lincoln cannot have a racist as its leader. The Party of Lincoln cannot have a man in charge who believes a person’s race, ethnicity, religion, or family heritage automatically qualifies a man from being able to do his job."
"I will say, then, that I AM NOT NOR HAVE EVER BEEN in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races---that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever FORBID the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race."
- Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, "Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, September 18, 1858, Charleston, Illinois," in "Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings" (New York: Library of America, 1989), p. 636, and in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5, page 371