Lincoln was NOT an abolitionist. Freeing the slaves was a desparate move during the war to raise Boston funding for the war and recruit freedmen for troops. The Union was in trouble and morale was down. Lincoln was forced to free the slaves. The war started over taxes on cotton exports.
no the war started because South Carolina and some other states decided they didn’t like the results of an election and tried to secede.
Lincoln was absolutely an abolitionist, although he toned down his rhetoric and made concessions about it while politicking in order to show he wasn’t a “radical”, who would jeopardize the Union by doing something rash.
The South gave him the perfect opportunity to destroy slavery completely.
Lincoln’s main intention in 1860 was to stop the spread of slavery to the west and isolate the slave states, which was the strategy of most political abolitionists. In general, many abolitionists felt that progress all around the south would eventually force the end of slavery without firing a shot, although it would take a long time to do so.
Had the south not seceded, then they could have kept their slavery for a little while longer, until it became economically and politically impossible to support.
You people have free reign around here but that doesn't mean I have to listen to your apologist BS.
Go bother someone else with that noise, I've heard enough of it for years around here, and it's embarrassing.
Whether Lincoln was an abolitionist or not, this statement is nonsense.
There were NEVER any taxes on exports of cotton, or indeed on exports of anything else.
Taxes were placed on imports, and a purchaser of the imported item in Iowa or New York paid exactly the same additional amount to cover the tariff as a buyer in South Carolina or Texas.