President Abraham Lincoln had never been a supporter of slavery, but in the first years of the war, he insisted that slavery wasn’t to be considered a reason for the conflict. As a matter of fact, he wanted to keep the border slave states, and he was well aware that, with emancipation of slavery, those border states might have left the Union and joined the Confederacy. Certainly, he could’t risk such a loss. On the other hand, President Abraham Lincoln realized that, in order to win the Civil War, the Union couldn’t simply occupy territory and capture the South’s capital. The purpose was to defeat the South, and to do so, the Union had to destroy what was its economical strength. Perhaps, the slavery system, which was, in fact, the strength …show more content…
It was indeed going to be the military target of the Union, but Lincoln had to wait for the right time to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. The Union lacked in gaining military successes, and Lincoln started to see the slaves who had escaped to the Union’s lines as a possibility to reinforce the military. Additionally, Secretary of State William H. Seward suggested that Lincoln waited to make the Emancipation Proclamation announcement until after a Union victory, with the intention of preventing it from being seen as an act of desperation. As a consequence, on September 22, 1862, after the Union won in Antietam, President Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863. However, the Emancipation didn’t apply to all the slave states, and it exempted the territories under the Union control, as well as the slave border states, and the Confederacy’s ares occupied by Union’s forces. Another limit of the Emancipation Proclamation was that the majority of the slaves were still in the areas under the Confederacy control, and for that reason, they could not be freed until the victory of the Union. The historical significance of the Emancipation Proclamation lays on the fact that the government had been transformed into a government for man kind. The Civil War was no longer just a war between Union and Confederacy. It was now a war for human
Lincoln was a very smart lawyer and politician. During his “House Divided” speech he asked the question, “Can we, as a nation, continue together permanently, forever, half slave, and half free?" When he first asked this question, America was slowly gaining the knowledge and realizing that as a nation, it could not possibly exist as half-slave and half-free. It was either one way or the other. “Slavery was unconstitutional and immoral, but not simply on a practical level.” (Greenfield, 2009) Slave states and free states had significantly different and incompatible interests. In 1858, when Lincoln made his “House Divided” speech, he made people think about this question with views if what the end result in America must be.
At the time, the South depended on slavery to support their way of life. In fact, “to protect slavery the Confederate States of America would challenge the peaceful, lawful, orderly means of changing governments in the United States, even by resorting to war.” (635) Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong and realized that slavery was bitterly dividing the country. Not only was slavery dividing the nation, but slavery was also endangering the Union, hurting both black and white people and threatening the processes of government. At first, Lincoln’s goal was to save the Union in which “he would free none, some, or all the slaves to save that Union.” (634) However, Lincoln realized that “freeing the slaves and saving the Union were linked as one goal, not two optional goals.” (634) Therefore, Lincoln’s primary goal was to save the Union and in order to save the Union, Lincoln had to free the slaves. However, Paludan states that, “slave states understood this; that is why the seceded and why the Union needed saving.” (634) Lincoln’s presidential victory was the final sign to many Southerners that their position in the Union was
If Lincoln was really the Great Emancipator he would have freed the slaves the first chance he got, but he didn’t. An amendment that helps prove this is the Corwin Amendment. This Amendment stated that slavery laws can only be changed by the states (Doc. C). In Document D, Lincoln stated that, “...to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service.” This quote shows how Lincoln agreed with the Corwin Amendment, and by agreeing to this it proves that Lincoln’s main goal was to keep the nation together. If he was really the Great Emancipator he would have disagreed with this amendment and stated his true state of mind. Also according to Emancipation Proclamation it said, “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free;” (Doc. H) This sentence from the Emancipation Proclamation talks about freeing the slaves, but if you go into detail you will realize that the only slaves he is freeing are the ones in the South, and since the South is another nation they won’t even listen. This also clearly shows how he wasn’t going to free the slaves in the border states. Also according to the Emancipation Proclamation he gave the South about 4 months to
Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery was the belief that the expansion of it to Free states and new territories should be ceased and that it eventually be abolished completely throughout the country. He believed simply that slavery was morally wrong, along with socially and politically wrong in the eyes of a Republican. Lincoln felt that this was a very important issue during the time period because there was starting to be much controversy between the Republicans and the Democrats regarding this issue. There was also a separation between the north and the south in the union, the north harboring the Free states and the south harboring the slave states. Lincoln refers many times to the Constitution and its relations to slavery. He was convinced that when our founding fathers wrote the Constitution their intentions were to be quite vague surrounding the topic of slavery and African-Americans, for the reason that he believes was because the fathers intended for slavery to come to an end in the distant future, in which Lincoln refers to the "ultimate extinction" of slavery. He also states that the men who wrote the constitution were wiser men, but obviously did not have the experience or technological advances that the men of his day did, hence the reasons of the measures taken by our founding fathers.
Reading Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address, one wouldn’t think he would be the president to end slavery.Speaking on outlawing slavery, he says,“I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” At the time, Lincoln wasn’t worried about slavery,
In a speech that Lincoln gave prior to his presidency, we can see how ambiguous his stance on slavery truly was. This speech, known as the ‘House Divided’ speech, was given on the 16th of June, 1858, and outlined his beliefs regarding secession, but did not solidify the abolition of slavery as his main goal. Lincoln states that the nation “could not endure, permanently half slave and half free,” and that the slavery will either cease to exist, or will encompass all states lawfully (Lincoln). At this point in his life, Lincoln’s primary concern is clearly with the preservation of the nation.
I think that Lincoln chose to issue the Proclamation at this time because the Union was losing the Civil War and needed some more firepower on their side to defeat the confederates. The Proclamation stated that any persons held as a slave in the rebellious states would be free only if the Union won the war. This was used as a motivator for the slaves fighting for the Union to defeat the Confederacy in a war for freedom. By the end of the Civil War there were nearly 200,000 slaves that fought for the Union and their freedom. Because slavery was so important to the economy of the southern economy, Lincoln believed the emancipation was necessary to weaken the South's ability to continue to fight the war. President Lincoln's issued the emancipation
President Abraham Lincoln, although he personally disliked slavery, was willing to accept slavery, as long as it could be preserved and would not spread to other states. The South began to rebel and President Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on 22nd of September 1862 stating if the southern states did not stop their rebellion by the first of January 1863, then the Proclamation would go into effect and would declare the slaves free. The Emancipation Proclamation, although it was not able to free any slaves, was still an important turning point of the war and also economically, socially, and politically impacted the Civil War.
During Lincoln’s first presidential term, he openly opposes the practice of slavery. Lincoln faces a dilemma with ending slavery because he doesn’t know what to do with the slaves once they are free. Lincoln personally believed in the idea of colonization for a post-slavery solution. Colonization consisted of deporting recently freed slaves to either Liberia or South America. Lincoln believed that white people and black people could never live together because black people would never be considered truly equal to white people. Lincoln says in his Address on Colonization, “The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent, not a single man of your race[black] is made the equal of a single man of
When the Civil War was approaching its third year, United States President Abraham Lincoln was able to make the slaves that were in Confederate states that were still in rebellion against the Union forever free. Document A states that on January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and that every enslaved person residing in the states that were “In rebellion against the United States” were free and that the Executive Government of the United States and that the military and naval authority were to recognize them and could not act against them at all. Although the Proclamation did not free every slave in the Confederacy, it was able to release about 3.5 million slaves. Along with freeing all of those slaves, it also stated that African American men were allowed to enlist with the Union and aid them in the war.
During and after this war, new and traditional techniques and technological advances were used during this war. The Civil War was a war mainly to preserve the union. President Lincoln himself has said [1]" My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it.” He used slavery to gain supporters to win the war.
Lincoln 's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, was to up the North 's support so they wouldn 't go to the confederate side. Not only a change in North war, but a change in the slavery, like granting the slaves their freedom so they wouldn 't have any more slave revolts which would cause even more chaos in other words another war. "The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves in the Confederate states if the states did not return to the Union by January 1,1863. In addition, under the proclamation, freedom would only come to the slaves if the Union won the war." Abraham Lincoln president at the time, the northerners also known as the Union, the south also known as the confederates, and slave states still in
Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 during the civil war, as main goal to win the war. Some historians argued that it was based on feelings towards slaves because not only it freed slaves in the South; it was also a huge step for the real abolition of slavery in the United States. While other historians argued that it was a military tactic because it strengthened the Union army, because the emancipated slaves were joining the Union thus providing a larger manpower than the Confederacy . The Emancipation Proclamation emancipated slaves only in the Confederacy and did not apply to the Border-states and the Union states.
Contrary to what today’s society believes about Lincoln, he was not a popular man with the South at this period in time. The South wanted to expand towards the West but Lincoln created a geographical containment rule keeping slavery in the states it currently resided in. Despite his trying to rationalize with the South, Lincoln actually believed something different ”Lincoln claimed that he, like the Founding Fathers, saw slavery in the Old South as regrettable reality whose expansion could and should be arrested, thereby putting it on the long and gradual road ”ultimate extinction” (216). He believed it to be “evil” thus “implying that free southerners were evil for defending it”(275). Lincoln wanted to wipe out slavery for good and the South could sense his secret motives. By trying to trick them, the South rebelled as soon as Lincoln became president and launched what is today known as the Civil war.
Lincoln declared that “all persons held as slaves” in areas in rebellion “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Not only liberate slaves in the border slave states, but the President has purposely made the proclamation in all places in the South where the slaves were existed. While the Emancipation Proclamation was an important turning point in the war. It transformed the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. According the history book “A People and a Nation”, the Emancipation Proclamation was legally an ambiguous document, but as a moral and political document it had great meaning. It was a delicate balancing act because it defined the war as a war against slavery, not the war from northern and southern people, and at the same time, it protected Lincoln’s position with conservatives, and there was no turning