Slavery

[Rob Wick]

MaddieM,

The history of the war is indeed fraught with major issues that are still in contention today. At the outset, the war WAS NOT a war to free the slaves. Very few people of that time were outright abolitionists. Lincoln certainly wasn't, although he personally found slavery morally repugnant. He favored colonization because he doubted the white man and the black man would ever be able to live in peace. Many neo-Confederates point to Lincoln's remarks in the debate with Stephen Douglas in Charleston, Ill., (where I went to college) on September 18, 1858 as proof that Lincoln was as much a racist as anyone in his time. They point to this passage:

While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

What they conveniently leave out, however, are the next few sentences.

I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone.

When the South seceded, it did so because of its fear that Lincoln and the Republicans would try to harm slavery, even though Lincoln consistently believed, and often said, that he had no legal power to do anything with slavery where it already existed. He, however, did believe (the Supreme Court notwithstanding) that the federal government had the power to keep slavery out of the territories. Had the war ended before the summer of 1862, it's likely slavery would have remained untouched.

Lincoln had a very delicate balance to wade through, because he had to keep the border states, especially Kentucky, out of the Confederacy, so he tiptoed slowly around the issue. Lincoln believed in compensated emancipation and colonization for several years, but the South wouldn't listen to any proposals Lincoln made.

He used his war powers to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and saw it strictly in his powers as commander in chief. In fact, some later historians chastised Lincoln for failing to accept the moral challenge presented by slavery. Richard Hofstadter once said that the Emancipation Proclamation had "all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading."

I can't go into all the details of the issue of slavery and the war in this small a post. Suffice it to say that anyone who tells you the war was ALL about freeing the slaves from the outset is wrong, just as is the person who tells you it had nothing to do with slavery, but rather some nonsensical notion of "state's rights" or, even worse, the tariff (no soldier ever wrote to his family "tell mother I died for the tariff.").

I would recommend Eric Foner's book The Fiery Trial as a good place to start.

Best
Rob