In Lincoln's day and time. It should also be noted that he served during this time in the General Assembly, to be truthful I have no idea how he voted. At the same time I will say in all of his speaches I've read there is no talk of this subject one way or the other.
http://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.htmlLegislators in the first General Assembly passed measures designed to discourage African-Americans from coming to Illinois. Blacks were denied suffrage, and other laws deprived them of most rights accorded free white men. African-Americans were prohibited from immigrating without a certificate of freedom. Moreover, they had to register that certificate, along with the certificates of any children, immediately upon entering the state. Among other things, the state legislature intended to discourage Illinois from becoming a haven for runaway slaves. Any runaway found in the state could be sentenced by a justice of the peace to thirty-five lashes. African-Americans assembling in groups of three or more could be jailed and flogged. Additionally, they could not testify in court nor serve in the militia. Finally, state law forbade slaveholders, under penalty of a severe fine, from bringing slaves into Illinois in order to free them.
In December 1845, an Illinois resident declared in a sarcastic letter to the New York Tribune:
In Illinois, in addition to considering slavery as an evil, its concentrated wisdom, in the shape of the Legislature, considers it criminal to be a slave. If a man happens to have a dark complexion, it is prima facie evidence that he is guilty of the crime. . . .If, through ignorance, want of friends, or other causes, he fails of producing such proof [of his freedom], he of course, is thrown into jail as a slave, to await the coming of his master�being, in the mean time, minutely described in a public advertisement.
I feel no need to comment, the facts surely speak for themselves
