Lincoln’s Whig friends also emphasized the race issue. The Sangamo Journal denounced Van Buren’s “love for free negroes,” manifested not only in his previous support for black suffrage, but also in his tolerance for courtroom testimony by blacks. In 1839, at the court martial of a naval officer, two free blacks who had witnessed the alleged crime testified against the officer, who was convicted and cashiered. Calling this a “monstrous and high-handed proceeding,” the Journal protested Van Buren’s refusal to declare a mistrial. The Journal declared that this would lead to a day when black testimony, even from slaves, would place whites at the mercy of blacks. Not stopping there, the editor predicted that Van Buren’s approval of the court martial verdict would lead to black suffrage and “one step more—too horrid to be contemplated—and that amalgamation.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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