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To: rose
And my whole point was, my dear, was that Pres. Lincloln did not want to be involved with freeing slaves anywhere but the confederate states

Your point, then, is without merit. Lincoln always wanted to end slavery everywhere, if it was up to him. He only had the power to do so unilaterally, though, in the states under rebellion. Of the four slave states that stayed in the Union, two of them (Missouri and Maryland) acted to end slavery on their own in 1864. West Virginia, admitted to the Union as a slave state, moved rapidly to end it. Delaware waited, but only had a couple of hundred slaves left at war's end. So the Union slave states barely needed Lincoln issuing proclamations freeing their slaves.

What he did do, however, was get the House to pass the 13th Amendment (the Senate had passed it, at his urging, months before)). It was on his insistence that the measure was included in the 1864 Republican platform. He promptly signed it and it went to the states. He was murdered 10 weeks later, before enough states had passed it.

226 posted on 02/22/2006 12:33:07 AM PST by Heyworth
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To: Heyworth
What he did do, however, was get the House to pass the 13th Amendment (the Senate had passed it, at his urging, months before)). It was on his insistence that the measure was included in the 1864 Republican platform. He promptly signed it and it went to the states. He was murdered 10 weeks later, before enough states had passed it.

And in his last speech he noted with pride that among the first states to ratify the amendment was his own state of Illinois.

232 posted on 02/22/2006 3:54:31 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Heyworth

http://www.civilwar.si.edu/lincoln_first_reading.html


236 posted on 02/22/2006 6:03:22 AM PST by rose
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To: Heyworth

P.S. My question again, why not free ALL slaves?


237 posted on 02/22/2006 6:09:56 AM PST by rose
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To: Heyworth

P.S. My point is with merit, if you read the link to the Smithsonian it states he refused to make abolition of slavery a Northern goal, in the early part of the Civil War, the beginning, so he did not always want to end slavery. He did not want to do so for fear of alienating slave holding border states. So when he did so, it was only the rebellious Confederate states.

All of the other comments you made took place years later.
If you read the link at the Smithsonian, he could have but refused to free all slaves for political reasons.

It is also in history that Pres. Lincoln gave 250,000 to a man to go to Haiti (or some country down there) to set up a means to transport blacks to that country. This person in charge made off with the money and everything fell through.

Also he was trying and considering how to move the blacks west of the Mississippi.

Am I critical of Lincoln, no, this is history, and we do not know what we would have done. I do think though, he should have set out to free all slaves.

Which goes back to my first post, that the Civil War was first and foremost a war of States Rights.


242 posted on 02/22/2006 7:35:22 AM PST by rose
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