6 - Slavery and the War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the union unless they could, at the same time, destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the union and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps the union; and what I forbear I forbear because I do not believe it would help save the union.
Abraham Lincoln, August 1862Abraham Lincoln's claim that preservation of the Union, not the ultimate fate of slavery, was the paramount objective in the Civil War reveals a long-standing American dilemma that was brought to the fore by the outbreak of war. On the one hand, men such as Lincoln clearly felt that it was the presence of slavery, and the political arrogance of the slave power, that had brought about the conflict between the states. Slavery, in their eyes, was an abhorrent institution that had to be brought under control – controlled, but not necessarily eliminated.
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- Conflict and CompromiseThe Political Economy of Slavery, Emancipation and the American Civil War, pp. 172 - 215Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989