J G RANDALL CHOOSES TO TAKE LINCOLN AT HIS WORD, JUST AS HAROLD HOLZER LATER DID RE THE LINCOLN DOUGLAS DEBATES

 Randall starts out in Constitutional Problems under Lincoln doing backflips to interpret Lincoln's actions, decisions, and motives consistently with Randall's concept of Lincoln as a moderate gradualist and special friend of the negro race.

No point in going back through comments here re the Lincoln Douglas Debates which show that this was not the case at all.

Just one of the key tip offs was Lincoln's vituperative hatred for Dred Scott, and for what he considered falsely as the overreaching role of the Court as against the Congress, a topic on which he spent perhaps more time than on anything else after returning to politics in 1854. 

Another tip off was his extreme view of the virtues of the strong power of the executive branch, as he interpreted the Constitution, as against the lesser power of the Court.

The facts surrounding Lincoln's rise to supreme power within the new Republican party, and then his use of it,  show tellingly that Douglas' account and interpretation of Lincoln's agenda and intentions were correct, whereas Randall's and Holzer's were not.