BASIC FACTS

In 1860, in the South, one white family in four owned a slave. There were 3.9 million enslaved Africans, and about 500,000 free Afro-Americans, for a total black population of 4.4 million people. One fourth of Southern whites owned slaves. Three-fourths of whites had no slaves at all. Basically, the rich one-fourth owned slaves. To be precise, 384,000 white people owned slaves. In 1860 the average slave cost about $1,000, which in today's money is worth about $60,000.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

First, it is critical to remember that the South was winning the war until 1863. Not until the battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg did the "tide" turn. Also, the Confederacy was an IDEA. The idea of an independent Southern country or nation. Hence the term, the War of Southern Independence. Recall too, that most of the war was fought in the South. Except for battles such as Antietam (in Maryland) and Gettysburg (in Pennsylvania), Northern armies invaded the territory of the South. The North was the military aggressor.

1. TRADITIONAL IMAGES

Traditionally Lincoln was pictured as the great emancipator. In the 1920s and 1930s poet Carl Sandburg painted the picture that the Civil War had been fought to free the slaves. Both of these images are exaggerations. Indeed they are false. The worst example of this misunderstanding comes from students who think that the South seceded BECAUSE Lincoln freed the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until January 1, 1863. How could the Emancipation proclamation of 1863 have CAUSED South Carolina to adopt an ordinance of secession in 1860, or the Deep South to adopt ordinances of secession in 1861? 1863 cannot cause 1860 or 1861. The future does not cause the past.
 
 

2. SAVING THE UNION: THE ISSUE IN CONTENTION WAS SECESSION

Lincoln's objective was to save the Union. As he himself said, if in order to save the Union it was useful or necessary or expedient to abolish slavery, then so be it. And if, in order to save the Union, it was best to compromise on the question of slavery, then so be that, too. Lincoln was clear that the issue in the war was secession, and the disagreement over whether the South could secede. Southerners felt that the Union was a voluntary compact or agreement. In 1787 and 1788 the Southern states had voluntarily entered the Union by ratifying the Constitution. But they felt they could voluntarily withdraw from the union as well. Lincoln disagreed. He was the first person to publicly assert that the agreement to form the Union was perpetual and irrevocable and irreversible. Once you were in, you were in forever, and you couldn't change your mind and leave later on. The Constitution itself was silent on the question. Therefore the issue was subject to interpretation.

When people cannot reach agreement they sometimes resort to violence or force to settle their dispute. This was the Civil War. The operative question was whether a state has the right to secede. The question was settled in favor of the Northern position, Lincoln's position, that the Union is perpetual. The question was settled in this way because the North won. If the South had won then obviously the answer to the question would now be, "yes, a state does have the right to secede." If you have more soldiers and weapons, and you win the war, your point of view or your position on the issue-in-dispute is vindicated. Because the North won, therefore it is now a settled matter that no state has the right to secede. But if the South had won, the answer would be different.

The South wanted to secede and form a separate nation. The North would not let the South go. It refused to let the South secede, peacefully. The North fought a war to force the South to remain part of the United States against its will, even though the Southerners no longer wanted to be part of the United States. It was like a divorce in which one partner says to the other, I refuse to let you leave this marriage. You have to stay married to me whether you want to or not.

3. WHY THE NORTH WOULDN'T LET THE SOUTH GO

Rhetorical question: Why didn't the North just let the South go? What right did the North have to force the South to remain in the Union if they didn't want to be part of the Union anymore?

There were several reasons for this.

A) First, Many Northerners felt that secession was treason. It was a betrayal of the American Revolution. Washington and Adams and the generation of 1776 had shed their blood to establish a free country, free from the tyranny of Britain. Now the South seemed to spit on all of that and turn its back on the efforts of the Founding Fathers.

B) Further, the industrial North needed the South economically. The South was a market for Northern goods. And the South was the nation's major export sector. Between 1790 and 1860 the export of cotton accounted for half of the value of all American exports. The South, however, could import manufactured goods from Britain and France. It didn't need Northern manufactures. It had alternative sources. Economically the North may have needed the South a lot more than the South needed the North.

C) Third, America could not be a great nation, a great power in the world, if it were split into two nations. During the Civil War, Napoleon III of France landed more than 100,000 troops in Mexico, which had fallen into debt and couldn't repay its loans. French armies took over Veracruz and Mexico City and established a puppet regime there under Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Mexico became a pseudo-colony of France. At the end of the Civil War the US demanded that France withdraw, under an implicit threat of war if France did not comply. The danger of new European colonialism in the New World was very real, and the French adventure in Mexico proves this. America's place in the world would be very different if the Confederacy had won the Civil War.

To repeat, initially Lincoln and the North did not fight the Civil War to free the slaves. That was almost an accidental consequence, a by-product, of the war. The immediate cause of the war was the dispute over secession. The war was fought to stop secession, or to save the Union.

4. LINCOLN ON THE ISSUE OF WHITE SUPERIORITY AND SUPREMACY

Lincoln was a most reluctant emancipator. And he believed in the superiority of the white race and in white supremacy.

In the Lincoln-Douglass debates of 1858 Lincoln said:

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LINCOLN QUOTES

I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes; nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And insomuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other white man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. (Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858). Quoted in Vincent Harding, There Is A River, p. 214.

"Your race suffers greatly, and we of the white race suffer from your presence. Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being on an equality with the white race. On this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours...I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact. It is better for us both to be separated."

Abraham Lincoln, August 1862, quoted in David Potter,
Division and the Stresses of Reunion, p. 160.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and 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 it 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 save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 1862. Quoted in David Potter, Division and the Stresses of Reunion, p. 155-156.

Lincoln's first priority was to do what he thought was best for white America. His concern for black America was secondary. If what was best for white America also happened to benefit black America, fine. But black American was not Lincoln's first priority, and he never pretended otherwise. He pursued emancipation, eventually, when he thought it would benefit the Union cause and help the North to win the war. As he said, it was a matter of military necessity.

5. THE DIFFICULTY OF MAINTAINING A WARTIME COALITION

Lincoln was trying to maintain a successful coalition in order to win the war. Abolitionists told Lincoln that if he acted to abolish slavery, God would be on our side, because abolition was morally right. Lincoln's famous reply was "WE would like to have God on our side, but we must have Kentucky." Lincoln feared that if he moved too far, too fast, against slavery, he would risk alienating the loyal Border States. Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri were slave states that did not secede. Lincoln did not think the North could win without the support of the Border States. Therefore, he put slavery on the "back burner" in 1861 and the first half og 1862. His policy was to move slowly on the question of slavery. His policy of delay was strategic, not just the result of some moral failing or lack of conviction.

6. INITIAL STEPS TO END SLAVERY

Nevertheless, some steps were taken to begin to end slavery, during 1862.

a) ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

On April 16, 1862 Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia. The abolition of slavery meant taking away the slave property of the masters. It has long been a principle of American jurisprudence that government cannot confiscate the property of any person, or deprive any person of their property, without due process of law. Therefore, in April 1862, when Congress abolished slavery in the District, the government provided financial compensation to the masters for their losses. The Federal Government paid up to $300 per slave. Approximately 3100 slaves were freed, and the Federal Government paid $993,407 in compensation to their owners for the loss of their property. Seven blacks in the District of Columbia had 26 slaves (Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 192).

Congress also appropriated $100,000 to assist the freed slaves to leave the District of Columbia and resettle in Haiti.

b) THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES

In June 1862 Congress voted to abolish slavery in all of the territories of the United States (the West), but without compensation to the masters for their loss (Morris, p. 238). The number of slaves in the Western territories was negligible. In 1860 there had only been 15 slaves in Nebraska, 29 in Utah, and 2 in Kansas.

c) THE ANNUAL ADDRESS OF DECEMBER 1862

In December 1862, Lincoln gave his annual message to the Congress (now called the State of the Union address). He proposed an amendment to the Constitution, that would provide for gradual, compensated emancipation. The plan was to be implemented gradually, and completed by January 1, 1900. Thus emancipation would begin in 1863 and would be implemented over the course of 37 years, to 1900. Each year a certain number of slaves would be freed, and compensation paid to their masters. Lincoln proposed that federal bonds be used to generate the money to pay compensation. This is what Lincoln meant by eventually placing slavery in the course of "ultimate" extinction (by 1900). In effect, Lincoln was offering a buy-out. This sheds further light on the Emancipation Proclamation (which we will discuss in more detail below). If the Confederacy would make peace, Lincoln would try to implement a plan for the gradual abolition of slavery, with compensation to the masters. If the Confederacy did not make peace, the penalty it would have to pay if it lost the war would be immediate abolition, without any compensation for the loss of their slave property whatsoever. To put if differently: If the Confederacy had settled in 1862, Lincoln would have tried to abolish slavery gradually, by 1900, with compensation to the masters. By refusing to settle in 1862, and fighting on, and losing the war, in 1865 the South suffered immediate abolition of slavery and got no financial compensation for the loss of the slaves.

The real policy choice was between A) gradual emancipation with compensation OR B) immediate emancipation without compensation.

d) BOTH SIDES REJECT LINCOLN'S PLAN

The real problem for Lincoln, in late 1862, was that the Southern states, and slave states in the Union such as Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri, were not interested in Lincoln's plan. They were still clinging to slavery. As moderate as Lincoln's plan was, it was still too much for the slaveholders. It was too radical for them.

And of course the abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison, Senator Charles Sumner of Mass, Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, wanted immediate abolition without compensation for the slave owners. For the abolitionists, Lincoln's plan was too little, too late. Thus, the Confederates, the Unionist slaveholders in the Border states, and the abolitionists all rejected Lincoln's plan-though for opposite reasons. In vain did Lincoln plead with the Border States to accept his plan for gradual, compensated emancipation.

I have said that in 1862 Lincoln favored gradual emancipation with compensation. Lincoln tried. He did everything that he could think of to win support for his plan, which he thought of as a compromise that would bring the war to an end. But events overtook him. The longer the war lasted, the more that pressures mounted for immediate abolition of slavery without any compensation. By 1865 the North was in a vindictive mood. Too many lives had been lost. Now it was too late to talk about a buy-out, or selling bonds and raising revenues to compensate the rebels. But the question still remained, what to do with the 4 million black slaves once they had been set free.

7. LINCOLN ON DEPORTATION OR COLONIZATION

Lincoln believed the best solution to the race problem in America was to deport the black people from the US. He wanted to colonize the blacks to someplace else. He believed that America had originally been intended (1607) to be a white country, a pure white country. Slavery had been an accident that took the country on a detour away from its proper destiny as a pure white country. The way to correct the mistake would be to put things back as they had been in 1618, before the first blacks were brought to colonial America.

In August 1862 Lincoln met with some Afro-American leaders. He said to them:

Your race suffers greatly, and we of the white race suffer from your presence. Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being on an equality with the white race. on this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours...I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact. It is better for us both to be separated." (Potter, Division and the Stresses of Reunion, p. 160).

Lincoln tried to interest the black leaders in a plan to colonize the black people out of the United States. But they responded that black people had been born in the United States, and generations of black people had been born in the US since 1619. By 1862, black people had lived in America for 243 years, since 1619. Douglass took the view that America belonged to the black people just as much as it belonged to the white people. They were not interested in deportation. In this episode, however, we can see how Lincoln resembles and echoes Jefferson.

In April 1863 Lincoln sent 453 blacks to Cow Island, off the coast of Haiti. This was meant to be a demonstration or experiment to show that colonization might work. The colonists fell victim to smallpox, malaria and poisonous insects. Their title to land was insecure. More than 80 died. In March 1864 a navy transport had to bring back the 368 survivors. So Lincoln actually tried to implement what Jefferson had merely talked about and written about.

As it became evident that colonization to Haiti was not the answer, Lincoln began negotiations with Nicaragua and Colombia to see if they might agree to take (receive) the black people. Until 1903 Panama was a province of Colombia, and Lincoln hoped to resettle the freed slaves in Panama. But nothing came of these negotiations. Furthermore, his generals told him there weren't enough ships and transports to carry 3.5 million slaves anyway. Logistically, colonization was impossible. And if you deported 1,000, another 1,000 new Afro-Americans were being born. You could never produce a net decrease.

8. THE WAY TO WIN THE WAR IS TO ATTACK SLAVERY

As time went on, and the Union lost battle after battle in 1861 and 1862, Lincoln came to be persuaded that the only way to win the war was to attack slavery. If the Confederates feared that the slaves would run away from the plantations en masse, or that there might be slave revolts, they would need to keep more of their men at home to guard the slaves rather than at the "front" to fight battles against the Union army. This would divert Confederate troops from the war. Further, Lincoln reasoned that the Confederates could fight because the slaves labored in the fields. Therefore the Confederates did not have to work the plantations. Lincoln concluded that in order to win the war it might be necessary and expedient to attack the South's greatest economic asset, slavery. Blacks captured in Confederate territory were used as laborers to dig trenches, build fortifications, work on the railroads. As the white body count rose, blacks were eventually allowed to be soldiers. The war to stop secession (1861-1862) eventually turned into the war to end slavery (1863-1865). But it did not start as a war to end slavery. Events pushed the country in that direction. (This does not make Lincoln a bad person; he was a product of his time and his social environment).

9. LINCOLN AND THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

A) The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862 was in part a diplomatic move designed to head off European intervention. In the spring of 1862 it seemed that Britain and France might intervene in the war on the side of the Confederacy. Lincoln wanted to avert this. The issue of slavery was unpopular in Europe, and if Lincoln could portray the Civil War as a battle against slavery then European public opinion would prevent France and Britain from intervening on the side of the Confederacy. So the Emancipation Proclamation was, at worst, a public relations gimmick or ploy.

In the summer of 1862 Lincoln decided he would issue a proclamation. But he did not want to appear desperate. He wanted to wait until the North won a battle. He had to wait until September, until the battle of Antietam. It was really a draw, but it would do. On September 22, 1862 Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It said that after January 1, 1863, all slaves in territories in rebellion against the United States were free. And the Federal Government of the US, including the military, would recognize and maintain that freedom. And the Federal Government will not commit ("do") "any act to repress such persons in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom". In addition, the Proclamation said that all slaves of suitable condition would be received into the armed forces of the US to garrison forts, positions and stations and to man vessels. The Proclamation also said that Lincoln was acting by virtue of the power vested in the president as commander-in-chief, in time of armed rebellion, as a necessary war measure for the purpose of suppressing  rebellion.

In effect, what Lincoln was doing was issuing a threat. He was giving the Confederacy a deadline. Lincoln was saying in September 1862 that if the Confederacy did not end the war by January 1 then he would free the slaves. But between the lines, if they ended the war before the deadline, they could discuss the issue of slavery further. This was meant to frighten them into ending the war in order to avert emancipation. If they would end the war, they could negotiate a deal about slavery.

Lincoln knew that the Southerners and free Afro-Americans would talk about the Proclamation, which is how the slaves would hear about it. Southern newspapers would print artciles about it. The Proclamation was almost an invitation to the slaves to run away from the plantations to Union lines, and to serve in the Union Army. Southerners could be expected to anticipate slaves running away, and this would lead the Southerners to divert resources from the battlefield in order to guard and police the plantations.

Lincoln also wrote "I enjoin the people so declared free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self defense." But tongue-in-cheek, this reference to violence raised the subject of a potential slave uprising. And the early part of the document said that the Federal Government would do nothing ("do not act") "to repress such persons in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." In other words, IF the slaves revolt, the Federal Government will not intervene to crush the uprising--as it HAD DONE in the Nat Turner revolt in Virginia in 1831 and the Charles Deslondes revolt in New Orleans in 1811. In effect, the Proclamation "upped the ante." It served notice that IF the slaves revolted, the South was "on its own"...it could no longer expect any help from the Federal Government. This was designed to frighten the Confederacy.

The problem with Lincoln's threats was that the Confederacy was still winning the war in fall 1862 and winter 1863. Lincoln's threats were not credible. And the Confederacy wasn't interested in a compromise at this point. They were "going for broke." Once the Confederacy rejected compromise, Lincoln proceeded with the threatened emancipation. To repeat, B) the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was a threat that didn't work. The South called Lincoln's bluff. And then Lincoln was forced to go ahead. Also, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in the loyal border States, only the ones in the territories in rebellion. So, the British said, Lincoln "freed" the slaves on paper, in the areas where he did not control, and id nothing for them where he did have control. The Emancipation proclamation could only be enforced in areas occupied by the Union army.

By the winter of 1865, as the war neared an end, Lincoln had to face up to the fact that his plans for gradual emancipation with compensation had been rejected on all sides. Furthermore, his efforts at colonization had failed. He had tried all the alternatives. They had not worked or produced any result. It looked, therefore, as if black people were here to stay.

By the winter of 1865 Lincoln said that he believed some of the most qualified black people, such as those who were educated, and owned property, or had served in the war should be allowed to vote. For all practical purposes, the dream of colonization or deportation was dead.

We can also see that Lincoln made his offer for gradual emancipation with colonization "too soon." As long as the Confederacy was winning, it was not interested in discussing a timetable for the end of slavery. But by the time that the Confederacy was defeated, it was "too late." Now the offer was off the table. Why would the North pay to compensate the slaveholders if the slavehlders had been defeated? Emancipation WITHOUT compensation became the price that the South paid for losing. If the Confederacy had accepted Lincoln's offer before Gettysberg, maybe the South could have negotiated for a gradual end to slavery, with compensation.

10. THE PROBLEMS WITH COLONIZATION

There were three real problems for Lincoln's colonization scheme.

a) First, the Southern landowners did not want to let their labor force go. Economically, as an agricultural society, the landowners desperately needed workers. Most whites possessed their own farms. They might be dirt poor, but it was their dirt and they owned it. No one would work on someone else's land or farm if he had a farm of his own. Economically, the black labor force was indispensable to the white landowners. They would not let them go if there was anything they could do to keep them.

b) Secondly, from a logistical point of view, HOW would you find enough ships or wagons to transport 4 million people? How would you feed them in the meantime? It was impossible.

C) Thirdly, where would you send these 4 million people? Haiti was already a poor country. Nicaragua and Colombia would not take them for free. What would they do and how would they live once they got there?

10. OPTIMISM VERSUS PESSIMISM

Let me conclude with some philosophical remarks, designed to provoke you and stimulate you to consider different ways of looking at things. Many people point to Lincoln's attitudes and plans to say that he was a racist. Lincoln was a racist in the sense that, apparently, he believed in white superiority and black inferiority. He believed in white supremacy. He did not believe that blacks were or should be equal with whites. If not racism, these attitudes are certainly evidence of ethnocentrism. But on the other hand Lincoln may simply have been very honest.

Lincoln was a pessimist about the issue of race. Lincoln felt that white people would never stop being prejudiced, and would never treat black people fairly or justly or equally. Was it really better to keep blacks in America just to mistreat them, and treat them as second-class citizens, and subject them to racism? If white racism was permanent, then wouldn't it be better to give the freed slaves a country or territory of their own, where they would have power and control, and wouldn't be subject to white racism and abuse? If one believes that the white majority, which holds power, is capable of change, and capable of overcoming its prejudice, then the idea of black people staying in America to build a better society, together, makes sense. But Lincoln apparently did not think that white people in 1865 were disposed to change any time soon. Even in the North and West, many whites did not want blacks moving into their counties or towns or neighborhoods. White workers went on strike rather than work with blacks, or attacked them. When blacks moved into white neighborhoods, they were attacked and their homes vandalized, burned, destroyed.

Most white Northerners were against slavery. But they didn't want any contact with blacks EITHER. They were against BOTH slavery and blacks. Evidently Lincoln felt that there was nothing that he could do to change the prejudice of whites against blacks; nor was there much that anyone else could do about it. Perhaps he saw, very clearly, that it would take more than 100 years to push aside the deep prejudice that prevailed in his lifetime. Perhaps Lincoln felt it was dishonest to keep black people here and then abuse and exploit them. He seemed to be saying, either treat them fairly or separate from them completely by sending them to a country of their own, where they might be the majority and have power and control over their own affairs. Lincoln knew that many white Americans in 1865 had no desire to SHARE America with blacks; or to share POWER with blacks as equal co-owners of this society. Perpetual subordination is not justice.

Furthermore, it was not only whites such as Lincoln who held "separatist" views. In the 1920s the great black leader Marcus Garvey said the same thing. He encouraged Afro-Americans to leave the United States and go back to Africa, but for the purpose of waging a war of liberation to free Africa from the European colonial powers that had occupied Africa after 1880. From the 1930s until 1975 the Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam said that if the white man would not end his racism then it was better to separate the races and let black people have a separate country of their own. This country might be a separate black nation right here in America, most likely in the South --not in Africa. While he was a member of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X said the same thing. In the 1960s militant blacks in an organization called the Republic of New Africa urged that 5 states in the South be given to Afro-Americans as a separate black nation in North America, as recompense for slavery. And today Randy Weaver and members of groups such as the Aryan Nations advocate a separate white homeland in the Northwest (Idaho, Montana, etc). So Lincoln was not the only one with separatist ideas. Separatism exists on both sides of the racial fence. So perhaps we who are liberal should not be so quick to judge Lincoln. To be provocative, and play the role of "devil's advocate," let me even suggest that if the pessimists are correct in their belief that racism is permanent, then maybe Lincoln was right.

On the other hand, if one is an optimist, and one believes that racism is not permanent and ineradicable, if one believes that it is possible for people to change and to "unlearn racism," then Lincoln might have been wrong. If it is possible for America as a nation to transcend and transform its racism, then it would make sense for black people to remain and try to build a better society.

But how you judge Lincoln depends, in part, on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist about race. In either case, today historians regard Lincoln not so much as the Great Emancipator, not as the champion of the cause of freedom for the slaves, but rather as the Reluctant Emancipator. In the end, he did free the slaves. Giving credit where credit is due, we must conclude, better late than never.

Pessimists feel that there is no hope. They conclude that white people will always be racist toward blacks, or that contact between the two is detrimental. Therefore they urge separation, as Jefferson did, as Lincoln did, as Marcus Garvey did, as Elijah Muhammad did.

Optimists feel that there is hope, and therefore urge continued efforts at integration. Martin Luther King felt that it was possible for white people to change, and to overcome prejudice and "unlearn" racism and learn to treat other people with dignity and respect...and for black people to learn forgiveness for the crimes of the past. He gave his life for his belief in the possibility of change...the idea that the present and the future do not have to be the same way as the past.