Honest Abe as Abhorrent as

Honest Abe As abhorrent as it may seem in the contemporary world, slavery as an institution has been part of human civilization since recorded history. In most cultures, a slave had more intrinsic value than precious metals. In the United States, slavery began in the early 1600s, when African workers were imported to tend the burgeoning agricultural sector -- a practice established in the Spanish colonies during the 1500s (Davis, 2006, 124).

It was this inexpensive labor that helped agriculture grow so qauickly, especially in the high-value, labor intensive areas of the southern United States. Although the legal importation of slaves from Africa ended shortly after the American revolution, historians estimate that over 650,000 Africans were brought to the United States between 1600-1790; a population that grew to over 4 million just prior to the Civil War (Social Aspects of the Civil War, 2009). The institution of slavery was nearly always contentious in U.S. politics.

It was hotly debated during the Continental Congress, with the northern colonies finally conceeding that to ratify the Constitution they would need to allow the south to retain slavery. However, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Dred Scott decision, the Underground Railroad, and numerous literary publications turned the issue into one of symbolic polarization between slave states and free states; culminating in the Civil War when the southern states opted for sucession from the Union. Essentially, several factors contributed to the change in American attitudes towards slavery.

Westward expansion and the idea of new slave or free states continued to polarize the nation, as well as the religious views denouncing slavery in some denominations and upholding it in others during the 1830s and 1840s. Indeed, much of the rhetoric against slavery dealt with power and economics: the southern states believed in their right to uphold a 200-year-old institution. The northern states, where the large portion of the manufacturing was located, used the ethical and moral stance that slavery was evil to control U.S.

fiscal policy and to attempt to wean the South away from Great Britain. The idea of slavery, though, was just part of the factors that led to southern secession -- and a new southern nation, the Confederate States of America, was unacceptable to most northern politicians. However, the famous Emancipation Proclamation not only contributed to the resolution of the war, but forever changed the way humanity viewed the instituion of slavery.

However, the conflicts during the war, the religious and political situation, and international pressure resulted in the 13th Amendment to the Constituition. This abolished slavery (1864) and changed forever the social and cultural face of the United States (Slavery and the Making of America 2004). Because of the new philosophical mandates arising from not only Europe but from the newly created United States, rationalist thinkers used the Enlightenment to reassess man's place in the universe and in congruency with his fellow man.

Of course this led to outright questioning of the slave trade, and the movement of abolitionism became a unique cause in the Americas, and even in Eastern Europe and Russia. This movement gained momentum in the United States after the British outlawed slavery in the 1830s, and seemed to culminate with the ultimate abolitionist -- a duly elected President of the United States. President Abraham Lincoln delivered "The Emancipation Proclamation" in 1863, with the belief that this would preserve the Union.

At the time it did not call for the destruction of slavery, but rather to give the Union one more advantage over the South. Giving black slaves freedom from their rebel masters helped the Union physically and morally. At the beginning of the War, the Union believed that the South was weaker industrially, and would cave to pressure earlier. However, the South had many experienced wartime leaders and soldiers from the Mexico-American War, and a resolve for which the North was unprepared.

The early tide of the War did not favor the North, and public opinion for Lincoln began to wane. For example, popular newspaper publisher Horace Greeley expressed some of the major sentiments of the time commenting on Lincoln's reactions towards the South, "Why theses traitors should be treated with tenderness by you, to the prejudice of the dearest rights of loyal men, we cannot conceive." He felt slavery was the main reason for this war, causing the Union to suffer, so it needed to be destroyed.

"...that whatever strengthens or fortifies Slavery in the Border States strengthens also treason, and drives home the wedge intended to divide the Union...that the rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor (Greeley 1862). If the North eventually won the war, and slavery was not abolished as an institution, war would be again inevitable.

However, Lincoln's primary duty, as he saw it, was not to save or destroy slavery, regardless of his personal views, but to preserve the idea of the Union. Lincoln believed that it was unlawful for any State to succeed, it simply could not be done -- the Union was the Union, and his role was to bring the errant South back into the fold. Lincoln personally found slavery abhorrent, but his duty was not to destroy it, but to unite the North and South as one nation once again.

If letting slavery exist helped united the country, Lincoln would let it be so, or vice versa. "What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union" (Lincoln 2004).

In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln states, after January 1, 1863, "...all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, .. forever free; and the executive government of the United States, ..

will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." This granted any slave, the choice of freedom in the North, and was designed to weaken the infrastructure of the South. The North would be perceived, too, as taking the moral high ground, battling the evils of slavery and upholding the rights of man.

example, the north would now be perceived as the "good guy" battling the evils of slavery to the rest of the world. "...to proclaim emancipation would secure the sympathy of Europe and the whole civilized world," The proclamation would also "...send a thrill through the entire North, firing every patriotic heart, giving the people a glorious principle for which to suffer and to fight..." (Lincoln, The Emancipation Proclamation 2004).

And end to slavery would also inspire Northern troops, now believing they were fighting for the greater good and to relieve the heavy burden of conscience over the controversy with slavery. However, one of the most important advantages would be the.