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.