“If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A.?” Lincoln demolished the idea that categories should be based on race: “You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.” He also tore down other permanent categories: “You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and,
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