And that is exactly my point to those historical revisionists who come along and try to paint Lincoln as the great abolitionist who morally objected to slavery in its every form and devoted his life to ending it. That is not the historical lincoln. The historical Lincoln was perfectly willing to tolerate slavery where it existed and only moved to end it as a war time strategy.
This significantly reduces him in some ways, but not his incredible political capabilities.
I can't dispute his political abilities - he was a brilliant orator with a great sense of humor no matter what I think of his motives or policies.
He was, afterall, a southerner.
So was John C. Fremont for that matter. The South fought the war because to them, free soilers were just as dangerous as Abolitionists. This is because Free-soilers would never vote pro-slave, even though they were willing to accept it in the slave states.
If that is the case, then why did they adopt the blatantly and specifically pro-slavery Corwin amendment cited above? The Free soilers' issue was primarily territorial and secondarily economical, not moral.
Well, that statement is not well supported in the record.
Lincoln said that slavery was a "continual torment" to him personally--that it made him miserable, and he worked to irradicate it:
"I confess that I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unwarranted toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no such interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union."
8/24/54
From the AOL ACW area:
"Now consider several facts about Lincoln's political career:
1. While Lincoln was building political strength in local Illinois politics, he opposed the war with Mexico as inexpedient for several reasons, including that it was waged to increase the power of slave states in the institutions of Federal government.
2. During Lincoln's first term as U.S. congressman from Illinois in the late 1840's, he continued to criticize the Mexican war and worked out a bill (never introduced) calling for a referendum in the District of Columbia designed to free the slaves in that Federal enclave and compensate their owners.
3. His reentry into national politics in 1854 was clearly for the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the territories under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He had his heart and soul involved with the idea of gradual emancipation to bring the fullest meaning to the words of Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.
4. From 1854 to his nomination for the presidency in 1860, as James McPherson noted in his DRAWN WITH THE SWORD, "the dominant, unifying theme of Lincoln's career was opposition to the expansion of slavery as a vital first step toward placing it in the course of ultimate extinction." In those years he gave approximately 175 political speeches. McPherson notes that the "central message of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a "one-issue" man - the issue being slavery." Thus, Lincoln's nomination to the presidency was based on a principled opposition to slavery on moral grounds, and that position was clear to voters both in the South and the North.
5. In his early speeches and actions as president-elect and president, he was clear in his opinion that he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery in the slave states. However, he was persistent and consistent in his efforts to encourage and aid voluntary emancipation in the loyal Border States, territories and the District of Columbia. These efforts predated his publication of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
In summary, I think one can safely say that Lincoln was clearly a gradual abolitionist from the beginning of his political career."
Lincoln hated slavery. He was willing to -tolerate- slavery where it existed, because he was a pragmatic man. With that prgmatism, he knew that if slavery were contained to the areas where it already existed, it would die. The slave holders knew that too. That is why they rebelled against the lawful government --simple because Lincoln was elected.
Walt
Lincoln was a moderate statesman, who pursued his goals with moderation and prudence. What's the crime in that? He was a man of his time and had to deal with the people of the time. He also had to avert the chaos that the plans of more radical men on both sides would have created. His own attitudes had to change and evolve over time. Are we surprised, angry or bitter that he wasn't born with our own 21st century views?
Confederate apologists always want to have things both ways. Anything radically abolitionist is condemned as agression against the South. Anything more moderate is attacked as being insufficiently abolitionist. So in their own minds the neo-confederates win either way. Until they subject Southern leaders attitudes and actions to the same scrutiny, they will always be playing the same shell game.
As for the territorial, economic, and moral motivations of the free soilers, there is something to that order of motives. But motives can't be that rigidly separated from each other. Should we presume that the opposition to owning or beating or chaining up another human being had no moral component simply because it wasn't accompanied by the integrationist sentiments of the 1960s, the affirmative action ideas of the 1980s, or the multiculturalism of the 1990s? Moreover, these attitudes were much more indefinite and in flux. The politics of free states like Illinois or Ohio involved a complicated mixture of Yankees, Southerners, foreign immigrants and others, so generalizations are dangerous. Someone who might have wanted to keep Blacks away at all costs in 1860 or 1862, might have fought and died for Black freedom in 1864 or 1865. In any case, Northern attitudes have to be seen in the context of national attitudes of the time -- North and South.