My son's history teacher said Abraham Lincoln owned slaves. Is this
true? I have a hard time believing it.

Abraham Lincoln was born and raised in a slave state (Hardin County,
Kentucky) where there were, according to records, over 1000 slaves. It
is true that some members of the Lincoln FAMILY were slave owners, but
Abraham Lincoln was never among them. Read this; it appears to be a
reliable government source.:

?His uncle, Mordecai Lincoln, owned a slave. His father's uncle,
Isaac, may have owned more than 40 slaves. The Richard Berry family,
with whom Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, lived before her marriage to
Thomas Lincoln, owned slaves. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, however, were
members of a Baptist congregation, which had withdrawn from another
church because of their opposition to slavery. Lincoln claimed that
his father left Kentucky for Indiana "?partly on account of slavery."
LINCOLN BOYHOOD NATIONAL MEMORIAL
?Lincoln's Thoughts on Slavery?
http://www.nps.gov/libo/thoughts_on_slavery3.htm

The truth of the matter is that Lincoln probably couldn?t have
afforded slaves even if he was so inclined. It is said that Lincoln
was so in debt due to failed business endeavors that the Sheriff once
seized his horse and saddle to satisfy a portion of his debts, leaving
his afoot:

?Lincoln and William F. Berry, a corporal from Lincoln's militia
company, purchased a general store in New Salem, Illinois, in 1833.
(Lincoln had no money for his half; he didn't technically "borrow the
money from a friend" but instead signed a note with one of the
previous owners for his share.) Lincoln and Berry were competing
against a larger, well-organized store in the same town; their outfit
did little business, and within a short time it had "winked out."

The debt on the store became due the following year, and since Lincoln
was unable to pay off his note, his possessions were seized by the
sheriff. Moreover, when Lincoln's former partner died with no assets
soon afterwards, Lincoln insisted upon assuming his partner's half of
the debt as well, even though he was not legally obligated to do so.
Exactly how long it took Lincoln to pay off this debt (which he
jokingly referred to as his "national debt") in its entirety is
unknown. It did take him several years, but not seventeen; nor, as
this statement implies, was he completely financially encumbered until
it was paid in full. Within a few months of the store's failure
Lincoln had obtained a position as the New Salem postmaster, and by
1835 he was earning money both as a surveyor and as a state
legislator.?

SNOPES ? URBAN LEGENDS
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/lincoln.htm

?Lincoln studied law and earned his law license in 1836. Within a
year, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and opened a law practice. By
this time, Lincoln was heavily in debt. Because he was determined to
pay his debts, he came to be called "Honest Abe," a nickname that
stuck throughout his life.?
THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY
http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=atb015b10&templatename=/article/article.html


Does this answer your question? 


Tutuzdad-ga

Also see:

"Lincoln's statement "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a
master," Bromwich noted that in these words, both men expressed a
belief that slavery "was a concomitant of American democracy, and its
degradation and betrayal."
http://www.yale.edu/opa/v29.n16/story10.html

Regards

THX1138

I would also suggest that, as a teacher, the burden of proof lies with
him/her to prove what he/she is teaching. I recommend that your or
your child politely ask the teacher for supporting
references/documentation FROM THE TEACHER if you doubt the accuracy of
what he is being taught. I would think the teacher is obligated to
provide it if requested to do so.

tutuzdad-ga

Another resource:

"Slavery in the White House"
"But it was a man who never held others as property, Abraham Lincoln,
who would make sure that slaves would never work in the White House
again."
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/04/subs/04_a02_e03.html

Home page
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/

Regards

THX1138

There has been in recent years a dedicated attempt to discredit all
white males important in our history, and some outrageous lies have
been told, even about Abraham Lincoln.  Some of these lies have even
made it into text books which were written by those with certain
political drives, I am told by teachers.

When Lincoln was a state legislator in Illinois, the legistature
passed a resolution against abolitionists. Lincoln not only refused to
sign it. He made up his own resolution stating slavery to be an
inhuman act. He said this again and again in his lifetime.  He also
admitted there was no way to eliminate it in the near future, for
political reasons.

After he offered to stop the Civil War by letting the slave states
keep slaves, to stop the blood bath, and the South refused, he
realized the North was going to win, and since the loss of life was
going to continue until the war was won, he issued the Emancipation
Proclamation.

An old book, copyright expired, name something like BOYS LIFE OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN discusses these issues. Here is a quote:

"Abraham Lincoln had grown to manhood while the question was
gaining in importance. As a youth, during his flatboat voyages to
New Orleans he had seen negroes chained and beaten, and the
injustice of slavery had been stamped upon his soul. The
uprightness of his mind abhorred a system that kept men in
bondage merely because they happened to be black. The intensity
of his feeling on the subject had made him a Whig when, as a
friendless boy, he lived in a town where Whig ideas were much in
disfavor. The same feeling, growing stronger as he grew older,
had inspired the Lincoln-Stone protest and the bill to free the
slaves in the District of Columbia, and had caused him to vote at
least forty times against slavery in one form or another during
his short term in Congress. The repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, throwing open once more to slavery a vast amount of
territory from which it had been shut out, could not fail to move
him deeply. His sense of justice and his strong powers of
reasoning were equally stirred, and from that time until slavery
came to its end through his own act, he gave his time and all his
energies to the cause of freedom."

You can download this book from the Gutenberg Project, free, copyright expired.

when you find the catalog, (try http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ )
use Lincoln for subject and get other books on his life.