The Senate Apologizes for Slavery and Jim Crow Laws — But Why?
#7 – TomF wrote “I know that in Southern schools kids are taught that it was about succession [sic - should be secession], but there is enough evidence that slavery was a prime issue. At least Lincoln thought so.”
As far as Lincoln went, slavery only became an issue after almost two years of war, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Up until then, Lincoln had made it clear that preservation of the Union took overwhelming priority over the abolition of slavery. It is true that Lincoln did not wish to see slavery expanded beyond the Southern states where it already existed, but he also stated that if he could keep the Union together without having to free one slave, he would do so without hesitation.
It should also be noted that Lincoln’s primary motivation for issuing the Proclamation was to attempt to drum up support for the war in the North. Overall, the war had not been going especially well for the North up to that point, and he came to realize that preservation of the Union was not a popular notion among Northerners who were growing increasingly tired of seeing more and more of their young men coming home wounded, dead, or simply not coming home at all. Lincoln therefore decided to “change horses in the middle of the stream” by shifting the focus of the war from preservation to abolition.
As a side note, it is also fascinating that the Proclamation was selective in where it applied – it did not apply to all slaves, only slaves in specifically named parts of the country. This conveniently included the four border states that did not secede but still had significant slave populations, as well as certain other areas.
Was slavery an issue? Certainly – but it wasn’t the main issue, not even with Lincoln.
