But the war was very hard and very long, and war by its nature lowers the status of peripheral principles and elevates the central principles in dispute." (Kleinfeld, 1997) Lincoln provided the means for emancipation from slavery and it cost him his life. Few individuals know however that the Emancipation Proclamation actually did not free the slaves immediately. This is because the president did not have the constitutional authority to free the slaves other than those slaves in states where it was deemed a military necessity to suppress rebellion. Lincoln also was a shrewd politicain who fully understood that freeing the slaves was risky politically because there were still slave states that were loyal to the union and the main purpose of the war was to preserve the union - not to emancipatre the slaves.

In other words, the Emancipation Proclamation was only a military order issued by th presidnet in his capacity as then Commander-in-Chief. The Emancipation Proclamation did however allow freed slaves to enlist in the previously segregated military which ast the time was an unusual opportunity. Nearly two hundred thousand former slaves signed up. This act therefore provided the Northern Union army with vast human resources not avilable to the south.

Conclusion

The work compared and contrasted two very great men in American history: W.E.B. DuBois and Abraham Lincoln. DuBois' personal philosophies got him labeled as a communist and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated for his beliefs. This report tries to understand these great men better by understanding some of the written or orated works. Thus, the true objective of this work was to do a comparison between Abraham Lincoln and W.E.B. DuBois in regard to the social and political struggles they faced.
References

Kleinfeld, Joshua (1997). The Union Lincoln Made. History Today, Vol. 47, November.

LIncoln, Abraham (1858). Fourth Joint Debate at Charleston. Mr. Lincoln's Speech, September 18, 1858. Retrieved May 1, 2005, at http://www.bartleby.com/251/41.html

Sundquist, Eric J. (1996). The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Slavery. Retrieved May 1, 2005, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Slavery_in_North_America

Wikipedia. (n.d.). NAACP. Retrieved May 1, 2005, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Colored_People

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