Abraham Lincoln's Slavery Policy

The purpose of this research is to examine Abraham Lincoln's slavery policy. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical background in which Lincoln's handling of the slavery issue became the principal dynamic of his presidency and then to discuss the evolution of his policy toward the containment, then abolition of slavery, within the context of Constitutional crisis and of a commitment to preservation of the Constitution. In that regard, it is important to note that the issue of whether slavery was an evil is outside the scope of this research; rather, what is important is the political impact of slavery as a given of the American culture of the period. Accordingly, the content and appropriateness of Lincoln's attempts at finding a permanent and politically workable remedy for the problem constitute the focus of investigation.

The historical background for Lincoln's choices in dealing with the American slavery issue can be located in the conception of government developed as a consequence of the Declaration of Independence, American Revolution, and the Constitutional Convention. Tensions and controversy surrounding the moral repugnance of slavery, its measurable economic benefits, and the project of nation building were articulated almost from the beginning of the republic. Writing in 1804, toward the end of his first term as president, Jefferson refers to the American "experiment . . . that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing th

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only by . . . the amendment process" (Wills 137). Just as the South was constitutionally prohibited from seceding, so was the North constitutionally prohibited from emancipating. Wills says that some historians have criticized Lincoln's delaying emancipation as lacking in moral foundation, but that others cite Lincoln's "realism" with regard to the way in which emancipation evolved as a policy (Wills 143). A statement to abolitionist Horace Greeley in 1862 balances realism toward the morality of slavery against appreciation of the danger to the nation (and, importantly, by implication its constitution) posed by the war. By no means is it the case that Lincoln's first priority as a politician or even as a wartime president was abolition per se: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. . . . I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views" (Hyman 217). In other words, it was essential to prevent the demise of the original American idea about governance and civil society. Lincoln appears to have been able to clearly recognize the constitutio

Category: History - A