A question about Lincoln and his views on slavery in America?

Question

I was reading a Civil War book and came across a very interesting quote from Lincoln.
" If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, i would do it; 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 ."
Is this a historical quote overlooked by Historians or was I always made to believe that Lincoln 's biggest mission in the war was to make sure all slavery was abolished? Any thoughts?

For those wanting the source, the book is
The Civil War, by GeoffreyC. Ward and other contributing editors from the Library of Congress. It is not a thrown together books with biased material , it is a fact based book. Others were aware of the quote as well, I was just never aware of it .

Answer 1

It's important, of course, to understand Lincoln's views on preserving the Union. But that doesn't fully explain the statement you cite. (I hope you'll see from what follows that Lincoln's anti-slavery convictions DO come into play, though in a way that does not violate his sense of his Constitutional duty.)

The statement is taken from what may well be the most famous of Lincoln's letters -- written in response to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley's criticisms of Lincoln.

Here's the whole thing (read also the page introduction):
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm


This was no private letter, but a deliberate public response. He wrote in part to clarify his strongly held conviction that his Constitutional responsibility was to preserve the Union by all means at his disposal. But he was doing something MORE than that, as Greeley himself later recognized. To see this, it is critical to know WHEN he wrote this, and what else was going on at the time.

Take note of the following dates from 1862:
- JULY 22, AUGUST 22, SEPTEMBER 22

Here's what happened in each one --

July 22 - Lincoln presents to his cabinet his plan to issue an emancipation proclamation, which he has already drafted in a preliminary form. Secretary of War Stanton suggests issuing it immediately. Secretary of State Seward, however, suggests that, in light of the current military struggles, this would appear merely as a desperate act. He advises waiting for a Union victory. Lincoln agrees.

August 22 - Lincoln -- having the Emancipation Proclamation in his desk, ready for release (this is key!)-- takes the opportunity to respond to the criticisms of Greely and others. This letter acts to reassure the many in the North who feared "radical" abolitionists. But by including the statement that he WOULD gladly take the step of freeing slaves if it would save the Union, he sets out a justification that prepares the way for the Proclamation.

September 22 - after the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln makes public the "preliminary emancipation proclamation", announcing that 100 days later (January 1, 1863) he will, according to his WAR powers ("as a military necessity") proclaim slaves free in all territories then in rebellion.

In short, the letter is PART of his move to emancipate the slaves.

Compare http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9803/emanc.html



I highly recommend reading the WHOLE letter (as well as the Emancipation Proclamation, which is much misunderstood).

Many have ignored the fact that Lincoln was, AS he wrote the letter, set to release the Proclamation, and have used the letter to smear Lincoln as not really caring one way or another about the plight of slaves, or cherry-picked quotes to present him as hating blacks. This is an ignorant (or sadly, sometimes deliberate) misrepresentation of his views.

In fact, Lincoln, though not an abolitionist, had long spoken of slavery as WRONG, as an injustice that he wished to see undone. Though he recognized that the Constitution allowed slavery, he opposed the EXTENSION of slavery, with the expectation that, once contained, slavery would die out in the South as well. (Further,, he had spent the previous few months PLEADING with the border states to pass bills ending slavery and accepting compensated emancipation.) He briefly re-iterates this at the end of the Greeley letter:

"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."


Finally, you need not TOTALLY revise you understanding of Lincoln's "mission". We need to be clear that Lincoln both wanted slavery to end AND did not SET OUT to do so. Yet he DID... and he later came to see it as a necessary and good thing. Consider, for instance, his efforts to convince the border states to free their slaves, AND his campaign for passage of the 13th amendment. Further, by the end of the war it was very clear to him that slavery was "in some sense" THE cause behind the war, an unjust institution that NEEDED to end.

His Second Inaugural includes this point -- "all knew that this [slave] interest was somehow the cause of the war" --and goes on to lay out the idea that of the war as God's just judgment (on BOTH North and South) for the offense of slavery.
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html



Even in the Emancipation Proclamation itself, Lincoln does not SIMPLY state his Constitutional grounds (believing his Presidential powers ONLY allowed him to emancipate slaves AS an exercise of "war powers". He ALSO refers in this as a JUST act. Note the conclusion of the Proclamation:

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
http://www.nps.gov/ncro/anti/emancipation.html


(Here's the "preliminary" proclamation issues on Sept 22 - http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/library/features/ep/ )

Answer 2

Yeah. You suffered from a common misconception about Lincoln and slavery. While he was basically against slavery, he didn't really feel that strongly one way or the other about it. The Emancipation Proclamation was not written for the benefit of the slaves (as is evident in the wording, if you actually READ it), but rather to punish the states still in rebellion. It expressly left out emancipation of slaves in border states loyal to the Union and in states that had already been re-conquered by the Union. Take into account, also that it was not even proclaimed until 3 years into the Civil War, and the illusions about the Civil War being all about slavery sort of shatter and erode, don't they? You could also read the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant on the subject. I don't have the book at hand, so I'll paraphrase, but he basically said, "My inclination was to just whip the South. Beat them into submission. And if future generations need to think that we fought to free the slaves so that they think we did the right thing, then that's the way it should be. We'll tell them whatever it takes to make them think we were in the right."

Answer 3

You may be interested to read up on the Lincoln Douglas debates, I think they were in 1858. It will give you some real insight on the issue, and Lincoln's views. He didn't care for slavery, but it was not one of his main motives until he had the Confederates beaten down. It was the proverbial icing on the cake. Before the war, he took more of a "live and let live" approach... he didn't personally condone it, but was willing to let other's live as they saw fit. He was hardly an abolitionist, although it was an institution that he disagreed with.

Just a side note - due to the complexity of the civil war, many school textbooks try to keep it simplified by focusing strictly on the slavery issue, without much mention of the tax issues, states' rights issues, the testing of the Constitution, views of the different political parties, the fact that many northerners that were against slavery still considered them "beneath" whites, the small faction of slave owners in the north, the role of indentured servitude prior to that time, the Fugitive Slave laws, etc. I personally disagree with the fact that the war is so over simplified, and the very nature of its complexity is why so many people are interested in the subject. One could spend a lifetime studying it, and never really know all there is on the subject. "Sparks" gave you an excellent answer.

Answer 4

Lincoln was faced with two major problems prior to and during the Civil War (1861-1865). The most important of these was to preserve the Union and the next in his mind was the problem of slavery. The quote you mention was made during a period of great stress for Lincoln. The war was brutal and bloody and that weighed heavily on the President. In 1863 Lincoln emancipated the slaves to give the soldiers of the north another reason to keep fighting. It could have turned out much differently if the South was willing to compromise. History is made by wars, great leaders, and compromise. The slavery issue was second to Lincoln's much more important task of ending the war reuniting the United States with the Confederacy. The abolishment of slavery was more a strategic move to end the war and it is fortunate that the slaves were freed as a result.

Answer 5

American children are taught in school that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. As they go on to higher levels of education, they read scholarly accounts of the war, and learn that it was originally called the War of Secession, because 11 Southern states went to war with the North to become a separate nation.
That's why Lincoln was deeply concerned on preserving the Union, keeping the country whole. Abolition of slavery was a concession he made to obtain his true goal: One nation, under God... etc., as stated in his most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address.
The popular belief is that he freed the slaves, since he signed the Emmancipation Proclamation. His personal beliefs were quite a different story.

Answer 6

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. While Lincoln was president there were slaves working in the White House[dubious — see talk page][citation needed] despite his anti-slavery stand in the United States up to the time of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. After that time slaves no longer worked in the White House.

Answer 7

This is a known quote from Lincoln (although not widely publicized). The purpose of the civil war was to preserve the union, not to free slaves. Lincoln did not "free the slaves". The emancipation proclamation only applied to slaves who lived in states that were in rebellion against the U.S. government and did not affect those in border states such as Maryland , Delaware, etc., who remained in slavery.

Answer 8

Preservation of the UNION was Lincoln's objective from the start.

The issue of slavery only came about as a tool to break the spirit of the South and appease powerful political people in the North.

He would have restored the Union any way possible in the first two years of the way. Only after the Battle at Antietam did he surcome to political pressure to introduce the slavery issue.





-K

Answer 9

Lincoln was desperate to find a way to keep the country unified and not go to war. Anyone who has done extensive reading about Lincoln is well aware of his position on slavery.

Answer 10

Actually, the biggest mission in the war from the Union perspective was making sure that the tariffs were enforced in Southern ports.

Lincoln went so far as to sign on to a Constitutional amendment that would have enshrined slavery in perpetuity, there's plenty of historical work on the matter if you care to look it up.

Also bear in mind that the Emancipation Proclamation was a political document, it actually freed no slaves in Union states, just the slaves in states that were in rebellion. Consider this, the 13th amendment passed after the Civil War would not have been necessary if the EP had any legal force.

The Civil War was not about slavery, solid historical work on both sides of the political spectrum says that it was about economics and basic principles of what the Constitution meant (State authority vs. Federal authority).

Also, bear in mind that Lincoln did not believe that black Africans were equal to whites, most of his thinking on the matter focused on repatriation of blacks to Africa.

Answer 11

Abraham Lincoln did want to free the slaves, but as president, his biggest mission was to hold the country together. He understood that a house divided against itself can not stand. In the South, they believed Lincoln's biggest mission was to end slavery, but that was not really true.