How was making a decision about slavery related to Lincoln's ability to lead?

Question

How was making a decision about slavery related to Lincoln's ability to lead?

Answer 1

From the very first, Lincoln's reason for the war and his call for volunteers was the preservation of the Union. After more than 18 months of war in which the Southern forces had won victory after victory, the people of the North were beginning to become disillusioned with the war effort. Some of the more radical Northern newspapers were even publishing stories calling for Lincoln to approach Davis about a peace agreement, and just let the Confederacy go its own way.

Lincoln didn't want to do this, but he also knew that he had to do something to get popular opinion behind him again. He needed something that would galvanize the Northern people and unite them behind a cause that they would support, and he knew just what that cause should be: slavery. Outlaw slavery and no one could dare stand up and say his reason for fighting the war was wrong. All of Lincoln's pre-war and pre-election debates point to the fact that he had no higher opinion of the blacks at that time than the average citizen, so his image as the "Great Emancipator" is incorrect. He used the Emancipation Proclamation as a tool to do several things: 1) Disrupt the South's economy by depriving it of the work force needed to harvest its cash crop, that being cotton; 2) Deprive the Confederate forces of the labor needed to build forts and entrenchments; 3) Deny the Confederacy the chance to conscript slaves into service for the Confederacy (which the Confederacy did try to do late in the war), and 4) Unite public opinion behind him and win the Northern people's support for the war effort.

It worked like a charm.

Answer 2

It has been debated for a long time. Some believe that Lincoln's decision to abolish slavery was a strategy to start the Civil War. He knew that an Abolitionist Movement would threaten the Southern States and their economy. There for a union of United States became the real issue.

Answer 3

It wasn't. The country went into a civil war. Is that leading?