I totally understand your point and I think it’s valid. However, this brings up the question of politics and law v. morality. Lincoln was a lawyer through and through, evidenced by the way he finessed the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, and his statements to the press about slavery. However, England and France had already decried slavery as an evil, and many god-fearing people in America did too. It’s tough to judge Lincoln, based on the political situation, I agree, but the moral side of me chafes at the cold, calculating way he manipulated this issue. His statement to the Tribune is tough to swallow and makes him seem like less of an emancipator and more of a litigator.
I guess we should just be glad that we had a president like Lincoln at the time, who was able to get the job of abolition done in America, despite his rhetoric getting through it.
You also haven’t quoted the last paragraph of the letter.
What Freddy said. You have to understand how unpopular Emancipation was, especially in the border states (whose livelyhood was tied up in slaves, and support Lincoln needed) and among the immigrants and urban poor, who were afraid that freed slaves would come north and take their jobs, and who Lincoln needed to serve in the army.
Lincoln’s entire political career was devoted to anti-slavery. He was not a member of the most radical wing of anti-slavery thought, which called for immediate abolition, but favored a policy of containment, tolerating slavery in the areas where it then still existed but preventing it from spreading into new territories, with the ultimate goal of ending it. He most certainly had a deep-seated and publicly stated moral objection to slavery, and he was a member of and presidential candidate of a party–the Republican Party–which had opposition to slavery as one of its chief policies.
Lincoln believed that as President he had a paramount duty to preserve the Union, and also that he had no legal or constitutional authority simply to end slavery by decree. And of course slavery was not ended by presidential fiat, or even by an act of Congress, but by a constitutional amendment.
I think it should be pointed out that it was Lincoln’s anti-slavery views that caused the South to secede once he was elected president, starting the Civil War in the first place.
No, it doesn’t. Lincoln was simply not being a fool. A fool would have rushed offand done the Emancipatio Proclamation first thing. A fool would have quite possibly lost the war because of it. Lincoln saw that the Proclamation was a weapon in the war of ideas. One uses each weapon in its proper time and place.
Lincoln needed a major battlefield victory to back up the emotional impact of the Proclamation: his primary immediate goal with it, in fact, was to influence France and Britain. To avoid backlash, he first had to prepare public opinion in the North. The Republican party handled that. Though it took much time, abolition societies had done a great deal in gaining acceptance of the idea, and Republicans were popular enough to use the Proclamation without repercussions.
After Antietam broke the Confederacy’s high water mark, France and Britain became abruptly cool to the CSA. The Proclamation then gave a solid reason for the public of both countries to support the Union. But the two had to come together, else it would look like a desperate move on Lincoln’s part. At best it wouldhave lost efficacy. At worst it would have pushed Britain and France straight into the Confederate camp.
Keep in mind also that freeing the slaves was really done as a military strategy. was a hope that when the slaves heard of their emancipation, they would rise up against their former masters and force the Confederacy to deal with their own internal civil war while trying to fight the Union at the same time.
In addition, the freed slaves became available as a manpower pool to the Union, thereby increasing its ability to wage war as well as decreasing manpower and the ability to wage war for the South. Emancipation became a goal of the war in 1863 with the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, because it would have been very difficult to get the freed slaves to fight for an army that still supported slavery.
Freed slaves did, however, do a lot of work of the Union army, freeing up soldiers and, if nothing else, reducing the Army’s labor costs.
Probably more important than that was the fact that these slaves were often the first glimpse Northerners ever had of blacks. They simply weren’t (and aren’t) common (for obvious reasons) in most the North. While they may have been in a subservient position, it was important in preparing the way for for future freedoms. Compare the black man who helped dig a ditch to the white man trying to kil you, and the former slave may well come out ahead, in the estimation of a Northern soldier. Plus, these men got to see first-hand the effects of slavery, which came as something of a shock.
There were three categories of Japanese Americans interned. 1st- those who were still Japanese citizens. This was legal, and a normal part of international law, we also interned Italian & German citizens, and they interned ours, and quite a few were exchanged. Internment of Japanese CITIZENS wasn’t racist, as we also interned those of other enemy nations, who where mostly white/anglo.
The infamous “no no boys” who refused to sign a loyalty oath or to serve in the US Military. Since refusing to serve in the US Military during that war got a good number of white-anglo citizens imprisoned; internment for the “no-no boys” was legal & moral, in fact, if they had been white they would have been put in a Federal Prison.
US Citizens of japanese ancestry, and whoes disloyaty had not been proven or even in evidence (except see #2). This was racist, immoral, unethical, and of doubtful legality.
As to the Emanipation Proclamation, smiling bandit has it correct. Combined with a Northern Victory, it had the very welcome result of having France & England back off any ideas they might have had of recognizing the CSA. In a way, not only did it free hundreds of thousands of black slaves (only a few the moment it was signed, yes, but MANY more as the war wore on) it might have well be the single most important act that won the 'war".
So- when it was signed- it only freed a few, but it ended up freeing many. Thus, Lincoln did indeed free many slaves.
Nicely said. We must remember that Lincoln was indeed a popularly elected politician, not king or cleric. Everything he said had to be weighed against popular sentiment. RUBYSTREAK: "Lincoln didn’t seem to have a deep-seated moral objection to slavery"
Wrong.
"Lincoln served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, as a representative from Sangamon County, beginning in 1834. He became a leader of the Whig party in the legislature. In 1837 he made his first protest against slavery in the Illinois House, stating that the institution was “founded on both injustice and bad policy.” [1]
"Lincoln is well known for ending slavery in the United States and he personally opposed slavery as a profound moral evil not in accord with the principle of equality asserted in the Declaration of Independence.
"At the age of twenty-eight, Abraham Lincoln took a stand against slavery in the Illinois state legislature. He called it an “injustice” and condemned the lynch mobs that terrorized blacks and abolitionists
"Lincoln scoffed at Douglas’s idea of “popular sovereignty,” saying slave owners were like hungry cows; remove the property fences from the free soil meadows and they will rush in and despoil it. Slavery was an evil, he said, it must be sealed off and asphyxiated.6
I’m pleased to be wrong about this. I’ve always admired Lincoln, but recent reading on the subject made me question his motives. Thanks for fighting my ignorance.
As much as he might have wanted, Lincoln couldn’t do a Ronald “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!” Reagan freedom cry in 1861. Political realities dictated that he finesse the abolitionist issue and sow the seeds for reconciliation, once the war was over. That said, it can be argued that Lincoln’s views evolved since his young days as a backwoodsman.
Well, that was quite a rebuttal, Carnac. Not only did you manage to crudely state that those concerned both with establishing the facts of Lincoln’s personal views and the full extent of his public statements, and with the inference from these sources of Lincoln’s motivations for insisting upon a brutal, unnecessary war, not to mention his personally vicious character, with a crowd of inbred rednecks, but, you managed to do so by throwing up a scant handful of unsubstantial cites, including a Wiki.
I think your manner of debate is ungentlemanly, your references lacking, and your smugness unpalatable.
Well, that was quite a rebuttal, Carnac. Not only did you manage to crudely state that those concerned both with establishing the facts of Lincoln’s personal views and the full extent of his public statements, and with the inference from these sources of Lincoln’s motivations for insisting upon a brutal, unnecessary war, not to mention his personally vicious character, with a crowd of inbred rednecks, but, you managed to do so by throwing up a scant handful of unsubstantial cites, including a Wiki.
I think your manner of debate is ungentlemanly, and your references are summary at best.
Apologies for the 3x post – the board was running slow, so I thought I could beat the browser to the server and make a slight edit without double posting. I was totally mistaken about that. Sorry.
Mistah Powell, do forgive mah for been a scalawag and ne’er-do-well, kind suh. If perchance you will humour me with your gentlemanly ways, do peruse this here passage from a most august institution.
Your obedient survant,
C. Magnificent
"Mr. DiLorenzo has recently written a book attacking Lincoln, The Real Lincoln. This past week at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, DiLorenzo debated the Claremont Institute’s own Harry V. Jaffa, author of A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. In both his book and the debate DiLorenzo displayed new heights of ignorance about the most basic problems of constitutional government, as well as the basic history of America. It is telling about our current political crisis that someone dedicated to freedom and free trade, as DiLorenzo surely is, could be so alienated from the American political tradition.
All of this is lost on DiLorenzo. In his debate with Professor Jaffa, for example, DiLorenzo asserted more than once that Lincoln cared little about the Constitution, and believed “slavery in the South was OK.” According to DiLorenzo, Lincoln had explicitly said so in his First Inaugural. Professor Jaffa, in his teacherly way, pointed out that Lincoln never said any such thing. Lincoln repeatedly and publicly expressed disgust at the idea of chattel slavery; but he also explained that the president of the United States lacked any constitutional power, at least in ordinary times of peace, to interfere with slavery where it then existed in the Southern states. (War or rebellion, of course, might change things, as wars and rebellions tend to do.) http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_o8UETFwWZ4J:www.claremont.org/writings/precepts/20020510krannawitter.html+“The+Independent+Institute”+“civil+war”&hl=en
