Unlike almost all other great historical leaders, Lincoln 
is typically regarded as a singularly good and virtuous 
human being. The most serious and damning criticism of 
Lincoln’s character is the charge that he was a racist. 
There is considerable evidence of racial prejudice on 
Lincoln’s part, particularly in the many offensive things 
he says in the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate at Charleston, 
Illinois. I examine several different  definitions of racism 
and argue that Lincoln was probably a racist in some senses, 
but not others. In the senses in which Lincoln probably was 
a racist, he was not particularly blameworthy for being a 
racist. To the contrary, he was praiseworthy for being much 
less prejudiced than most people of his own time and place 
and for largely overcoming his prejudices.