Abraham Lincoln was a major force in abolishing slavery in the United States, but he wasn’t blind to the perspective of the slave owners. In fact, he understood their challenges quite well.
From Ryan Holiday’s “Wisdom Takes Work“, he shared:
“Perhaps Abraham Lincoln’s greatest skill was his empathy. He detested slavery. Nearly his entire political career was based on his resistance to the expansion of the slave powers that had captured the country and betrayed the fundamental principles it had been founded on, and yet…he seemed to perfectly understand why slave owners thought and acted as they did.“
While he understood, that doesn’t mean he agreed with them. Continuing from Holiday’s book:
“This empathy didn’t mean he accepted their logic or forgave their crimes, for he also thought long and hard about what it must be like to be owned by another person, to have your labor stolen from you, only because of your skin color.“
This reminds me of two other things I’ve read.
The first is from the excellent book “Crucial Conversations“, where they say:
“To keep ourselves from feeling like sellouts while exploring others’ paths—no matter how different or wrong they seem—remember we’re trying to understand their point of view, not necessarily agree with it or support it. Understanding doesn’t equate with agreement. Sensitivity doesn’t equate to acquiescence. By taking steps to understand another person’s Path to Action, we aren’t promising that we’ll accept their point of view. We are promising to listen.”
More recently from Monica Guzman’s “I Never Thought of It That Way“, she shares:
“That’s because, to be totally frank with you (and if it isn’t already obvious), one of my deepest personal convictions in life is that understanding the people who confound us is always, always worth it.“
Lincoln was among the wisest men in history, and this is a great example of why. He fought for what he believed in, but didn’t close his eyes to the reasons that his opposition held. If someone disgrees with you, it’s nearly impossible to change their mind unless you know why they believe what they believe.
If you can show some empathy and understand the other side, your conversations are likely to be much more fruitful.
