Free Essays on Lincoln

Did Abraham Lincoln Free the Slaves? Abraham Lincoln was the reason that the slaves got emancipated when they did. Without Lincoln’s efforts the slaves would have stayed enslaved for awhile longer. No one for sure can say how long they would have stayed enslaved, but it is a fact that they would have not been emancipated when they did if it wasn’t for Lincoln. When Lincoln won the presidency he pronounced slavery as a moral evil that must come to and end. By stopping the expansion of slavery, and by not retreating from Fort Sumter, he provoked the south to secede from the Union. This was vital for the emancipation of the slaves, he needed the country to stay united, but the north had to have to upper-hand. He was the commander and chief of the Union, without him and his efforts the Union may not have won the war. Slaves started to fight together with the Union, because they too also new that if they wanted to be freed the Union would have to win, and there only hope was Lincoln. Some people would say that the slaves won their own freedom, but that is untrue. Without Lincoln winning the presidency, no other presidential nominee understood how critical it was to free the slaves. Without his great leadership in the Civil War the Union might not have ever won, which would have put slavery on a hold. Instead if the South would have won, slavery would have expanded and been less of an issue. Lincoln was the man who was reelected into office when the people that elected him for the second time already knew his view on slavery and could have voted otherwise, but they didn’t. It was Lincoln’s push that freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. It also was his great leadership skills that reconstructed Southern cities, from post-war damage that made people in southern states view him more of an ally. He is the single reason that the 13th amendment eventually got passed. Of course Lincoln wasn’t the so... Free Essays on Lincoln Free Essays on Lincoln The Election of 1860 By the election of 1860 profound divisions existed among Americans over the future course of their country, and especially over the South's "peculiar institution," slavery. During the presidency of James K. Polk (1841-1849), the United States had confirmed the annexation of Texas to the Union, negotiated a treaty with Great Britain for the Oregon territory up to the 49th parallel, and, as a result of the Mexican War, added California and New Mexico as well. The American eagle now spanned the entire continent, a source of nationalistic pride to those who thought expansion was the fulfillment of both God's will and America's mission to spread its republican institutions. But national exuberance turned sour when Americans confronted the issue of whether slavery should follow the flag into the new territories. During the 1850s, different views about slavery's expansion and its place in America's future fueled suspicion and bitterness between northerners and southerners. In Kansas, the qu estion of whether the territory would be opened or closed to slavery erupted in violence and political unrest. "Bleeding Kansas," the treatment of fugitive slaves, and other issues involving slavery strained and then shattered the nation's two-party system which had served for a generation to weld sections and interests into two powerful national institutions. Of the two major parties, the Whig organization totally succumbed in the mid-1850s to the sectionalizing effects of the slavery issue and ceased to operate as a national party. Like the country, the Whig party could not exist half slave and half free. Meanwhile, the Democratic party managed to remain intact throughout that decade, but slavery acted like a solvent to weaken its bonds. Increasingly, its powerful, predominantly southern wing was at odds with a smaller, northern contingent. The campaign of 1860 accurately registered the country's precarious condition after a de... Free Essays on Lincoln Did Abraham Lincoln Free the Slaves? Abraham Lincoln was the reason that the slaves got emancipated when they did. Without Lincoln’s efforts the slaves would have stayed enslaved for awhile longer. No one for sure can say how long they would have stayed enslaved, but it is a fact that they would have not been emancipated when they did if it wasn’t for Lincoln. When Lincoln won the presidency he pronounced slavery as a moral evil that must come to and end. By stopping the expansion of slavery, and by not retreating from Fort Sumter, he provoked the south to secede from the Union. This was vital for the emancipation of the slaves, he needed the country to stay united, but the north had to have to upper-hand. He was the commander and chief of the Union, without him and his efforts the Union may not have won the war. Slaves started to fight together with the Union, because they too also new that if they wanted to be freed the Union would have to win, and there only hope was Lincoln. Some people would say that the slaves won their own freedom, but that is untrue. Without Lincoln winning the presidency, no other presidential nominee understood how critical it was to free the slaves. Without his great leadership in the Civil War the Union might not have ever won, which would have put slavery on a hold. Instead if the South would have won, slavery would have expanded and been less of an issue. Lincoln was the man who was reelected into office when the people that elected him for the second time already knew his view on slavery and could have voted otherwise, but they didn’t. It was Lincoln’s push that freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. It also was his great leadership skills that reconstructed Southern cities, from post-war damage that made people in southern states view him more of an ally. He is the single reason that the 13th amendment eventually got passed. Of course Lincoln wasn’t the so...