Abraham Lincoln on slavery
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Abraham Lincoln's position on freeing the slaves was one of the central issues in American history. Though Abraham Lincoln was one of the people identified as most responsible for the abolition of slavery, his position evolved over the years, and while he early went on record[1] as being personally opposed to slavery, he did not initially take the position that it was appropriate that federal laws be passed to abolish the practice in states where it already existed. Most Americans agreed that slavery had to expand to maintain its political power, and by ending that expansion, Lincoln proposed to put slavery on a course of gradual extinction.
Before the American Civil War and even in the war's early stages Lincoln said that the Constitution prohibited the federal government from abolishing slavery where it already existed. Yet he and his Republican Party maintained that in the long run the country could not exist "half slave and half free". His position and the position of the Republican Party in 1860 was that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any more territories, and thus all future states admitted to the Union would be free states. In this manner, he expected that slavery would be put on a path to eventual extinction.
During the war he used the war powers of the presidency to issue Emancipation Proclamation, which declared "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free" but specifically refused to free slave in Union states or in states that were already under Union control. As late as February 1865 he offered to pay the owners for the emancipated slaves; the buyout offers were rejected. (In the District of Columbia the slaves were purchased and freed.) It has been argued that by making a declaration only about territories he did not control, as a practical matter, he did not free a single slave. Slaves that had escaped to the Union side were, however, immediately freed - as were millions more as areas came under Union control.
In 1842 Lincoln had married into a prominent Kentucky family of slaveowners. (His brothers-in-law would later support the Confederacy.) Lincoln returned to the political stage as a result of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act and soon became a leading opponent of the Slave Power--that is the political power of the southern slave owners. Before 1861 he also opposed the abolitionists. Lincoln's critics, especially the Radical Republicans during the war, said he moved too slowly.
Some historians point to his numerous anti-slavery quotations, some of which are striking and original. They argue that while muting his sentiments sometimes for strategic reasons, Lincoln (as he said himself) "always hated slavery". They say that his compromises on legislation and his refusal to use presidential power to support emancipation (prior to 1863) were merely matters of political maneuvering and strategy. Other historians argue that Lincoln never intended to free slaves at all, but was forced into it as a matter of political expediency. In his written response to Horace Greeley's editorial (see below), while a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation sat on Lincoln's desk, he says, "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; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that...I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. " In actual practice he freed all the slaves in confederate territories.
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[edit] 19th century national politics
Lincoln is the leader most associated with the end of slavery in the United States. Before 1860 he was one of the leading opponents of the Slave Power--that is the group of Southern slaveowners he and most Republicans thought was running the government. During the Civil War he adopted the position that the Slave Power had to be destroyed and the best way was to free the slaves in the rebellious territories whose power he wished to destroy. In January 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that in actual practice eventually led to military missions that freed most of the nation's 4 million slaves. He was the primary sponsor of the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, that guaranteed that slavery would never again exist in the United States.
Lincoln came to national prominence in the late 1850s as an enemy of the Slave Power, vowing to stop its expansion and put it on a course to extinction. Before 1861 he was sworn to not interfere with slavery. But once the confederacy declared war, he could use the presidential war powers to win the war, and that involved destroying the economic base--slavery--of the Confederacy. Clearly, Lincoln used the slavery issue to his political and military advantage. Although Lincoln initially resisted efforts by his general to free slaves in areas captured by the Union, eventually he gave in to necessity and drafted the Emancipation Proclamation. The war powers were the basis for the Emancipation Proclamation. The technical language of the Proclamation never actually freed slaves in the boarder states or in areas Union control, but carefully only extended freedom to slaves in rebel states where Lincoln had no actual power at the time. Many slaves were freed, however, as the war continued. Lincoln continued to try to preserve slavery in the broader states and to try to pay former slave owners for the loss of the slaves. The border states were pressured to abolish slavery on their own (all but Kentucky did so), and he secured over 180,000 black soldiers and sailors, arguing that their sacrifice on the battlefield earned both freedom and the right to vote. The Thirteenth Amendment made abolition permanent.
[edit] Prewar
In 1860 the Republican Party's commitment to restricting the growth of slavery became a main reason for secession of the Southern states. The debate before 1860 was about the territories, especially Kansas. With secession the debate centered on the Confederate states.
Though he thought it was essentially a reaffirmation of terms already in the Constitution, Lincoln was a driving force in 1861 for the compromise Corwin amendment. It was never passed, but would have explicitly prohibited congressional interference with slavery in states where it already existed. The goal of the Corwin amendment was to reassure the loyal slave states (such as Kentucky).
[edit] Overview
Many of Lincoln's anti-slavery sentiments were shown in the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, his opponent who defeated him in the Senate race. Douglas criticized him as being inconsistent, saying he altered his message and position on slavery and on the political rights of freed blacks in order to appeal to the audience before him, as northern Illinois was more hostile to slavery than southern Illinois.
Although Lincoln once said How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]. (Letter to Joshua Speed, 1855) there is dispute as to what Lincoln actually believed. Lincoln's close friend, Henry Clay Whitney, reported that the Proclamation was "not the end designed by him [Lincoln], but only the means to the end, the end being the deportation of the slaves and the payment for them to their masters--at least to those who were loyal."
Equality was another matter. He did not say they had a right to complete equality with white American citizens. In the September 18, 1858 debate, Lincoln said:
- 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 - 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 forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much 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. ([2])
Lincoln maintained before secession that the federal government did not possess the constitutional power to end slavery in states where it already existed and backed the Corwin Amendment to affirm this principle.
[edit] On Emancipation
At the beginning of the war, Lincoln prohibited his generals from freeing slaves even in captured territories. On August 30, 1861, Major General John C. Frémont, the commander of the Union Army in St. Louis, proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Lincoln feared that this action would induce slaveowners in border states to oppose the Union or even start supporting the enemy. Lincoln demanded Frémont modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. When Frémont refused, he was replaced by the conservative General Henry Wager Halleck.
Radical Republicans such as William P. Fessenden of Maine and Charles Sumner supported Frémont. Fessenden described Lincoln's action as "a weak and unjustifiable concession to the Union men of the border states" and Sumner writing in a letter to Lincoln how sad it was "to have the power of a god and not use it godlike."
The situation was repeated in May 1862, when General David Hunter began enlisting black soldiers in the occupied district under his control. Soon afterwards Hunter issued a statement that all slaves owned by Confederates in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina were free. Despite the pleas of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln ordered Hunter to disband the black 1st South Carolina Regiment and to retract his proclamation. At all times Lincoln insisted that he controlled the issue--only he had the war powers.
Lincoln made it clear that the North was fighting the war to preserve the Union. On August 22, 1862, just a few weeks before signing the Proclamation and after a draft of it was on his desk, he wrote a letter in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged complete abolition:
- I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 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; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
- I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. [3]
Just one month after writing this letter, Lincoln issued his first Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that at the beginning of 1863, he would use his war powers to free all slaves in states still in rebellion (as they came under Union control).
Also revealing was his letter[4] a year later to James C. Conkling of August 26, 1863, which included the following excerpt:
- There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt, returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us, since the issue of proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes believe the emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the Rebellion, and that at least one of these important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called abolitionism or with the Republican party policies but who held them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures and were not adopted as such in good faith.
- You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.
- I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.
Lincoln addresses the issue of his consistency (or lack thereof) between his earlier position and his later position of emancipation in an 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges[5].
[edit] Colonization
Since the 1840s Lincoln had been an advocate of the American Colonization Society program of colonizing blacks in Liberia. He mentioned it favorably in his first Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln's support for colonization appeared throughout his presidency. He appointed the Rev. James Mitchell as his Commissioner of Emigration to oversee colonization projects from 1861 through 1865. Between 1861 and 1862 Lincoln actively negotiated contracts with businessmen to colonize freed Blacks in Panama and on a small island off the coast of Haiti. The Haiti plan collapsed in 1862 and 1863 after swindling by the business agents responsible for the plan, prompting Lincoln to send ships to retrieve the colonists. The much larger Panama contract fell through in 1863 after the government of Colombia backed away from the deal and expressed hostility to colonization schemes. In 1862 Lincoln also convened a colonization conference at the White House where he addressed a group of freedmen and attempted to convince them of supporting his policy.
Despite the setbacks in Panama and Haiti, Lincoln discussed plans to renew his push for colonization during his second term. About a week before the assassination, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler recalls a meeting with Lincoln at the White House, in which Lincoln asked him "But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free?" [6] He then asked Butler to consult Secretary of State William H. Seward and devise a colonization program for Panama. Butler would oversee the transfer beginning with the deployment of the United States Colored Troops to the isthmus, where they would be employed digging a Panama Canal. The plan was evidently abandoned after Lincoln's premature death – after the several failed attempts, only one member of his cabinet had still supported colonization, and without Lincoln's influence, its political support continued to wane.
[edit] References
- Herman Belz; Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era 1998
- David Donald, Lincoln (1995),
- William E. Gienapp; Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography (2002)
- Allen C. Guelzo; Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President 1999
- Allen C. Guelzo; "Defending Emancipation: Abraham Lincoln and the Conkling Letter, 1863" Civil War History, Vol. 48, 2002
- William C. Harris. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union 1997.
- Howard Jones; Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War 1999
- William K. Klingaman. Final Freedom: The Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 1861-1865 (2001)* James M. McPherson; Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution 1992
- James A. Rawley, Abraham Lincoln and a Nation Worth Fighting For (Harlan-Davidson, 1996),
- Michael Vorenberg. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (2001)
