Thomas Jefferson statue toppled in Portland, Oregon

[sarisataka]

29. He was a white supremacist

The Emancipation Proclamation was not made out of any great belief in equality but more to appease abolitionists and keep their support.

ETA> while he was opposed to slavery, he would have allowed it to continue if that was the price to maintain the Union.
as to equality:

“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races … I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

-said by Lincoln during his debates with Stephen Douglas