When I think of Abraham Lincoln, one of the first things that come to mind is the Emancipation Proclamation and the fact that Lincoln played a huge role in abolishing slavery. However, while reading Chapter 9 of Zinn’s PHUS and watching the first part of The American Civil War video, I realized that abolishing slavery wasn’t all that Lincoln was concerned about. Of course, I understood that the Civil War was first started because of disputes between State rights vs. Federal rights, but I always believed Lincoln was all for making the war about slavery.<\/p>\n
In the chapter I read and the video I watched, I learned that Lincoln’s motivations weren’t entirely driven by freeing the slaves. On the contrary, his main goal was to keep the Union together. Lincoln knew that if he was blunt about getting rid of slavery, he would lose a lot of support, so he simply played it safe and said that from now on, no more states could have slavery. I also found it interesting that the only reason Lincoln finally decided to drop the Emancipation Proclamation is because of the foreign support the Confederacy was gaining. Although I understand to a degree where Lincoln was coming from, I still find it sad that basic human rights and liberties have to be politicized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I think of Abraham Lincoln, one of the first things that come to mind is the Emancipation Proclamation and the fact that Lincoln played…<\/p>\n