Tea Party will never understand the Constitution: What the right misses about its favorite document

Salon ^ | April 21, 2015 | Elias Isquith

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How could he have been both “ahead of his countrymen”, and not as anti-slavery as the abolitionists?

Because the abolitionists were a very small percentage of the population.

They didn't have reliable public opinion polls back then, but the Liberty Party got well under 1% of the vote in 1840 and about 2.3% of the vote in 1844.

In 1848, the Free Soil Party nominated former president Martin Van Buren and got a smidgen over 10% of the vote. In 1852, they were down to under 5%.

None of these groups were abolitionist in the sense that William Lloyd Garrison and the other militants were, but the numbers indicate just how marginal actual abolitionists were in the population -- well below 5%, most certainly below 3%.

This shouldn't be hard to understand in modern terms. There are all kinds of fringe groups out there with all sorts of views that are only a blip in the electoral returns (when they bother to run) and only a miniscule fraction of a fraction of the population.

But don't take my word for it:

Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. -- Frederick Douglass, April 14, 1876 speech about Lincoln