Similarities between Lincoln and Tupac.

[My Name Is Kate]

http://www.nhinet.org/beran.htm

That is quite a profound article that Linda posted a link to above. I had to read it more than once to begin to grasp the depth of it.

The gist of it, as I read it, is that Lincoln refused to compromise on the territorial slavery issue because he knew it would create a crisis that would jeopardize the Union, so he could then be the one to save the Union and thereby satisfy his lifelong ambition for glory as a national hero, while all along publicly claiming that his number one goal was to preserve the Union.

Wow.

The problem I have with that is this. Lincoln had observed in his house divided speech on June 16, 1858, that the Union could not continue to exist half slave and half free. So his stated reason for opposing the spread of slavery in the territories was consistent with his stated number one goal of preserving the Union. He was not willing to compromise on territorial slavery (and likely the South also was not), because it was not in the best interests of the Union, aside from any moral reservations he had about it.

Slavery in the territories would also mean more political power for the South, due to the additional 3/5ths of a vote per slave allotted to slaveholders as the territories became states. As a Republican and former Whig, Lincoln was in favor of industrializing the country, a Northern goal. What he did not count on was the length of the war and the extent of loss of life. That had to weigh on his conscience and cause him to second guess his refusal to even attempt any compromise on territorial slavery. If moral opposition to slavery had been his number one reason for not being willing to compromise on it, he might have been able to justify the loss of life as divine retribution for the sin of slavery. But was wresting political power from the South, or even his glorious ambition of keeping the Union intact, worth so great a loss of life? And that was his primary goal, at least in the beginning of his presidency, and not the abolition of slavery per se.