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In the 1840s, I believe that the slave-holding Southerners were typically the Democrats.
I just finished Ulysses S. Grant's Memoirs, who was a Northerner who married into a Democratic, slave-holding family. His father, Jesse Grant, grew up with John Brown, the radical abolitionist.
It must have been unforgivable to have his son Ulysses marry into a slave-holding, Democratic family. Ulysses didn't think slavery was a good idea - and his dark-night-of-the-soul was pretty wrapped up in these issues, I would imagine.
Trying to apply the term racism to the people in the 1830-1860s who weren't abolitionists, using modern terms, could be true. The USA had spent half a century trying to make sure the English, French and Spanish were ousted. Considering that Africans were more people --at that time-- from another country, and under duress, too, didn't make them earmarked to be an exception.
Many people in the No-Nothing party started out as separatists, and after the civil war, transmuted into Republicans, hanging their hat 100% for the Reformation and the Advancement of former slaves. I'll have to research further to see if David Wilmot was one of these -- a quick search returns nothing. :)
There were southern Whigs who were slaveholders as well. Many of these became Democrats in the 1850's after the Whig party split on sectional lines, but some ended up briefly becoming Southern Know-Nothings as well as being part of the Constitutional Union party in the 1860 election.
I'm adding something concerning the "racism" of David Wilmot, noting that this was very common for non-abolitionists who yet very strongly opposed the expansion of slavery to be "racist" by modern standards. Even though I think highly of Abraham Lincoln, to some extent even he was "racist" by modern standards until the end of the Civil War.John ISEM (talk) 17:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As for how Abraham Lincoln's views might be considered "racist", first of all, he was not an abolitionist, but only was against the expansion of slavery, not for the ending of slavery everywhere. Second, he said in the Lincoln-Douglas debates that he had never been in favor of "negro equality" and that there was a physical difference between the races that would prevent them from coexisting together. Third, he was in favor of colonization of blacks and talked about the possibility when he became more inclined toward abolitionisim during the civil war.
At the end of the Civil War, his views were much closer, if not right along with, modern views of race. He did give a speech discussing voting rights of freed slaves, which, if not necessarily referring to every of age black, still may have inspired John Wilkes Booth to assasinate him. (much of what was said here was mentioned or quoted in Battle Cry of Freedom:The Civil War Era by James M. McPhersonJohn ISEM (talk) 17:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Any unsourced opinions on Lincoln do not belong in the lede on an article about David Wilmot. Wilmot's views on race were, of course, characteristic of some abolitionists but not all (or even a majority). You should note that there is a difference between Free Soilers and Abolitionists --abolitionists by definition would also be free soilers but not all free soilers were abolitionists. Lincoln was not an abolitionist, of course, but an unsourced comparison of him with Wilmot is not really appropriate. A discussion of whether Lincoln was "to some extent" a racist by today's standards is a complex issue with nuances not appropriate to this article -- unlike Wilmot, Lincoln did base his opposition on slavery on a moral basis. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
