The Emancipation of Abe Lincoln (New York Times January 1, 2013)

The author of The Emancipation of Abe Lincoln, Eric Foner, might have mentioned that probably Lincoln's greatest reservation about emancipation was his fear that once blacks lost their value as slaves, racial violence would follow in the South.  That fear was confirmed in the wake of Appomattox.  What can only be described as a reign of terror was expanded after the last federal troops were withdrawn and Home Rule was restored in the former Confederate states in 1877.  Torture or death awaited anyone who resisted white supremacist customs and policies.  White-on-black crime was not a punishable offense in state courts.  Lynching, for example, slowly declined in the twentieth century primarily because state executioners replaced lynch mobs in carrying out the will of the white majority.  True emancipation did not occur until the Supreme Court and Congress acted to abolish such policies in the 1950s and 1960s.

For more on this subject, see Clarke's book The Lineaments of Wrath: Race, Violent Crime, and American Culture.

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