He quite appropriately believed that slavery was the greater evil.
The exact context of the remark about his policy towards Mormonism was:
Quote:
In 1862 Lincoln told T.B.H. Stenhouse, a Mormon journalist, that he intended to leave the Mormons alone:
“Stenhouse, when I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farms which we had to clear away. Occasionally we would come to a log which had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn, and too heavy too move, so we plowed around it. That’s what I intend to do with the Mormons. You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone I will let him alone.”
And let the course of nature continue, the log will eventually rot.
His perception seemed to be in tune with mine, that the murder of JS was unfortunate, that the locals should have allowed the legal system to wipe up the mess. And remember that he was good friends with John Hay, who was witness to many of the events in the Nauvoo area.
This may be the most authoritative and objective article on the subject:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journ ... itale.htmlIt is interesting that he was working on the Emancipation Proclamation and the Morrill anti-Bigamy Act at the same time.
Apparently, UD does not have a copy of the Stenhouse article in his database.
