Abraham Lincoln was a skilled propagandist who appealed to the "better angels" of the nature of the American public to win broad support for ending slavery during the Civil War, Lincoln expert Phillip Shaw Paludan told an audience of more than 200 people at the University of Illinois at Springfield Tuesday.

Paludan, who holds the Naomi Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the university, was one of two speakers at the first UIS Lincoln Legacy Lecture, part of four days of Lincoln-related activities held in connection with Monday's dedication of the new Lincoln Presidential Library.

Joining him was Mary Frances Berry, an educator, activist and chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, in a discussion titled "Lincoln and Race."

Paludan said Lincoln was not "a reluctant emancipator" of America's slaves, but he was "a cautious emancipator" who knew that he had to have public support for emancipation, and that support would not be forthcoming if the mostly white public felt the war was being fought solely to free the slaves.

Instead, Paludan said, Lincoln made public statements suggesting that he only favored emancipation if it contributed to saving the Union, a cause he knew the public fully supported, even as a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation sat on his desk ready to be issued.

"Lincoln wanted to save the Union and free the slaves," Paludan said. "He wanted a Union where slavery was not safe," where it could be gradually wiped out through a process of slow erosion and elimination.

Lincoln did not pander to the "fears and hatreds" of the public, but instead practiced a positive propaganda that appealed to people's better sensibilities, Paludan said.

"He never called the Confederacy or Jeff Davis the enemy," he said. "During the war he never played a race card. He reached out to political enemies and adversaries. He did not take politics personally. For Lincoln, the political was not the personal."

Berry said Lincoln slowly matured in his attitudes on race during his presidency, and only slowly came to realize that "the unfinished business" of the war was to use the power of the government to help the former slaves and bring about a fulfillment of the promise of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal."

Berry said it is unfortunate that Lincoln did not leave a speech or other document behind laying out the views on race that he had matured into before he was assassinated, "but he didn't know he was going to be killed."

She added that supporters of the Confederacy began revising history shortly after the end of the Civil War, gradually blurring the fact that the war was fought over slavery, and that the same revisionism continues today.

For example, she said, in states such as Georgia in the recent election, views about the Confederate flag were a factor in the outcome.

"The Confederate flag has become redefined as just a symbol of a lost cause, without saying that the cause was first slavery, then obstinate Jim Crow (discrimination)," she said.

In a time of cynicism about politics and politicians, Paludan said, Lincoln's legacy remains alive and well, and although Lincoln could not solve all the problems of his time nor provide answers to all the problems of our own, "he remains worthy of respect, not worship" and perhaps emulation.

Doug Pokorski can be reached at 788-1539 or doug.pokorski@sj-r.com.