1) The idea of the article with this provocative title is that being an animal right activist is just the most decent way to be a human being: "While reading through the immense amount of information about Abraham Lincoln, I found that there is a heated debate whether he was an animal “activist” or not, or if he was actually not a hunter because of his love for animals. I never considered myself an activist but have been called a “crazy animal rights activist” by some along the way. I just feel that animals deserve to be treated humanely, and not suffer at the hands of humans. If that makes me an activist or crazy-so be it. I’ve been called worse. I think that Abraham Lincoln was a man that saw inequality and savagery as wrong'; useless pain and suffering as against his beliefs. Is that an activist, or just a responsible and caring human being? I’m not sure the distinction matters. He loved his pets, and that was the intent of this column today." Source and further information: http://www.examiner.com/x-2332-St-Louis-Pets-Examiner~y2009m6d30-Animal-rights-activist-or-just-a-decent-human-being--Abraham-Lincoln 2) "The first animal protection group in the United States was the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded by Henry Bergh in April 1866. Bergh had been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to a diplomatic post in Russia, and had been disturbed by the treatment of animals there. He consulted with the president of the RSPCA in London, the Earl of Harrowby, and returned to the U.S. to speak out against bullfights, cockfights, and the beating of horses. He created a "Declaration of the Rights of Animals," and in 1866, persuaded the New York state legislature to pass anti-cruelty legislation and to grant the ASPCA the authority to enforce it." Source and further information: http://www.answers.com/topic/animal-rights 3) "Let me share an excerpt of Goodwin’s book: “The melancholy stamped on Lincoln’s nature derived in large part from an acute sensitivity to the pains and injustices he perceived in the world. He was uncommonly tenderhearted. He once stopped and tracked back half a mile to rescue a pig caught in a mire—not because he loved the pig, recollected a friend, ‘just to take a pain out of his own mind.’ When his schoolmates tortured turtles by placing hot coals on their backs to see the wriggle, he told them ‘it was wrong.’ He refused to hunt animals, which ran counter to frontier mores,” (103-104). In a political speech, Lincoln later compared tortured turtles wriggling out of their shells to crooked politicians wriggling out of their skin. Lincoln’s diet also gave me a hunch to his possible vegetarian and animal rights viewpoint; he ate bread, jam, usually one egg, and coffee and stayed away from meat. He was thin for a reason! In arson on the White House horse stables, six horses died. President Lincoln was in tears over the horses’ deaths (603). Lincoln also got a kick out of humanizing animals: Lincoln’s son Tad had a pet turkey and Lincoln asked his son whether or not his turkey intended to vote. Tad replied that his turkey was “not of age”. Lincoln dearly loved the quick-witted answer and recounted the story to others for days (664). I also found quotes online from Lincoln that confirmed my suspicions that Lincoln believed in animal rights: “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog or cat is not the better for it…I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.” “I could not have slept to-night if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground. (reply to friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to return a fledgling to its nest.)” Lincoln’s animal rights beliefs were probably founded from the same principles he applied to civil rights. Blacks were tortured and treated like animals when enslaved. If it was conceivable that blacks suffer, feel pain, and deserve rights, then it is conceivable that animals suffer, feel pain, and should have rights, as well. In the US, we now recognize blacks not as animals, but as humans, as citizens—with rights in this country. Can this also be extrapolated to animals? Lincoln was a man ahead of his time in many regards. Was he on to something?" Source and further information: http://www.urbanagora.com/2008/05/abraham-lincoln-vegetarian.html

Umm,I never thought Lincoln was an animal's rights activist. I know many white people back then thought african americans were "animals",so I guess he was.

are you reffering to african americans as blacks?

Lincoln was not as decent as history paints him. He was a racist who was against slavery but still considered blacks inferior to whites and said so publicly. He also enjoyed "Darkie Jokes" and Minstrel shows that degraded blacks and was served dinner by black slaves in the white house for the first few years of his administration. He would be run out of office today because of his racial viewpoints. Read the "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln" It's very eye opening.