---

Abraham Lincoln Frees the Slaves for Tactical and Political Reasons. Preserving the Union With or Without Slavery Was the Emancipators True Intention.

---

Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves as a practical solution. His primary goal was to preserve the Union of the United States.

Although he believed slavery was inherently wrong, he did not believe the Constitution gave him the power for such an act.

Hewas an outspoken critic of the institution of slavery and was known to argue against its expansion in society.

Lincoln was originally a member of the Whig party, but in 1854 he was known as a republican, and within just a few years, he gained significant attention and popularity in politics.

Although many viewed his opinions on slavery as extremist, it can be noted that he was selected by the Republican party because he was considered moderate compared with many radical republicans of the era.

Abraham Lincoln consistently denied that his election would spark a civil war, and that he would not institute laws freeing the slaves in states where those laws existed.

However, after his election and prior to his inauguration, the Southern states had already broken away and declared their independence to form the Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln undertook some very controversial steps to win the war and defeat the Confederacy, and then created measures that led to the abolition of slavery in the United States.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves by helping to promote the Emancipation Proclamation, and by facilitating the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Many believe that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a conspiracy of Confederate sympathizers who were upset about losing their slaves and their economic positions in the south.

---

---

Civil War

As it became clear to the nation that Abraham Lincoln had won the election in 1860, several southern slave-holding states decided to secede from the Union altogether and declare independence.

Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves in order to win the ensuing war.

South Carolina was the first to declare its independence, and six deep south states followed shortly thereafter.

The upper Southern states initially were more cautious and did not react as quickly.

In April of 1861, after the attack on Fort Sumter, the real events of the Civil War had began.

As Lincoln called up soldiers to fill the army, several more states seceded, and Lincoln quickly attempted to negotiate with remaining loyal states to keep them in the Union.

In quelling the uprising across the nation, the government had arrested over 18,000 rebels, and most were held for two or three months, though none were executed.

---

Abraham Lincoln Frees the Slaves

Lincoln had always maintained that his powers to end slavery were limited by the Constitution, and because of these obstacles, the only logical way to attack slavery was by making it as uneconomical and inefficient as possible.

This was intended to make slavery undesirable and allow it to be phased out over a period of time.

When Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves, it is through the Emancipation Proclamation rather than through a slow phasing out of slavery.

When Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, slaves in Confederate lands were to be freed as the Union army retook the land.

Lincoln commented that he never had felt as certain as he felt in signing the Proclamation, that he was doing what was right.

He also claimed that he would not have freed the slaves had it not been in the interest of saving the Union, that if the Union was not in danger, he would not have freed them.

By this, he suggests that the act of freeing the slaves itself dealt a devastating blow to the Confederate rebellion.

---

The Thirteenth Amendment

Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves permanently by his support and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The Thirteenth Amendment was created with the intention of prohibiting and preventing the furtherance of the institution of slavery and to prevent involuntary servitude.

The Thirteenth Amendment allowed the law against slavery to apply to situations after the Civil War itself, so that slavery and servitude would be abolished forever in the future.

The Thirteenth Amendment was necessary, many Republicans of the time believed, because the Emancipation Proclamation was a combination of two executive orders created by the president.

In order for the law to have legitimate lasting effect as the law of the land, it had to be amended into the Constitution.

Although Lincoln helped the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, he was assassinated prior to its official ratification by the states.

---

---