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"African Americans had demanded freedom from bondage as early as the American Revolution, and in the 30 years before the Civil War a strong interracial movement had called for the immediate abolition of slavery and for Black rights. Lincoln himself came under enormous pressure from abolitionists and radicals within his own party during the first two years of the war to act against slavery. ...
"We know that Lincoln held at least two beliefs on slavery and race on the eve of becoming the president of the United States. He abhorred slavery as a moral and political blot on the American republic even though he did not advocate ... the abolitionist goal of immediate emancipation. But in viewing slavery as an unmitigated evil, he already shared important ground with abolitionists. ...
"With the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, abolitionists and radical Republicans immediately urged Lincoln to use his war powers to strike against slavery. They were doomed to disappointment. Preoccupied with retaining the loyalty of the border slave states and engendering Northern unity and support for the prosecution of the war, Lincoln insisted that his primary goal was the reconstruction of the Union and he gave short shrift to the abolitionist agenda. ...
"By the summer of 1862 [however], Lincoln decided to issue an emancipation proclamation. It was not simply that he was wisely biding his time and waiting for Northern anti-slavery sentiment to mature in order to move on emancipation. He himself had to be convinced of the failure of his appeasement ... [and] proposals for gradual, compensated emancipation ...
"For abolitionists, the president would become permanently identified with the moment of liberation, living on as an icon of Black freedom in African American celebrations of emancipation in years to come. ... The abolitionist insistence on tying the cause of the slave with that of American democracy influenced Lincoln’s overall conception of the war. He would immortalize this understanding of the war in the Gettysburg Address as the second American Revolution, as representing a “new birth of freedom” in the republic. The abolitionist interpretation of the war gave meaning and purpose to it in a way that simply a war for the Union never could. ..."
~ Manisha Sinha from her post 'Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Born an Abolitionist, He Became One'
~ Manisha Sinha from her post 'Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Born an Abolitionist, He Became One'
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