John Brown and Abraham Lincoln - a reappraisal

... John Brown and Abraham Lincoln While students continue to learn from textbooks, they continue to be misinformed and/or not given the full history. President Abraham Lincoln, for example, has always been depicted as the great sixteenth president who set the slaves free, yet his letter to Horace Greeley and the Emancipation Proclamation prove his views on slavery mostly dealt with saving the Union. John Brown, on the other hand, has been seen as a man who had mental problems and detested slavery, but comments made by people who knew him show him as being sane. US history textbooks rewrite history and leave out critical information; comparing and contrasting President Abraham Lincoln to John Brown will show how critical information is left out in textbooks. Although many students seem to think President Lincoln was a strong Abolitionist and not a racist, this is clearly untrue. In his letter to Horace Greeley,

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