Abraham Lincoln's position on freeing the slaves is often surprising and controversial today, despite the frequency and clarity with which he sometimes stated it in the speeches that are better known today. He is well known for his objections to slavery and his support in 1865 of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. Not as well-known is his repeated expression that slavery had to be tolerated in states where it already existed. Before and even early during the Civil War, he stated often that the Constitution prohibited the federal government from abolishing slavery where it already existed, but that he was intent on prohibiting its spread to the territories. Though he thought it was essentially a reaffirmation of terms already in the Constitution, Lincoln was a driving force behind the "compromise" Corwin amendment that would have explicitly prohibited congressional interference with slavery in states where it already existed. His later Emancipation Proclamations and his support of the Thirteenth Amendment are thus commonly regarded as being inconsistent with his earlier stated position.
Overview of Lincoln's Beliefs
Many of Lincoln's anti-slavery sentiments were exhibited in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, and even that early Stephen Douglas criticized him as being inconsistent, saying he altered his message and position on slavery and on the political rights of freed blacks in order to appeal to the audience before him -- as some parts of Illinois were more supportive of slavery than others.
It can be stated with relative certainty that Lincoln morally opposed slavery on a personal level as a profound evil which should not be allowed to spread into the territories. He believed that African-Americans, like all other men, had an inalienable right to liberty – as declared in the Declaration of Independence. He did not, however, believe they had a right to complete equality with white American citizens. From his debate with Douglas on August 17, 1858
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"I will say then that 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 - that 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 forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch 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 man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."[1]
Lincoln maintained that the federal government did not possess the constitutional power to bar slavery in states where it already existed and backed the aforementioned Corwin Amendment to affirm this principle.
On Emancipation
At the beginning of the war Lincoln prohibited his generals from freeing slaves even in captured territories. On August 30, 1861, Major General John C. Fremont, the commander of the Union Army in St. Louis, proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Lincoln feared that this action would force slave-owners in border states to join the Confederate Army. Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. When Fremont refused, he was replaced by the conservative General Henry Wager Halleck. The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, William P. Fessenden, described Lincoln's actions as "a weak and unjustifiable concession to the Union men of the border states". Charles Sumner wrote to Lincoln complaining about his actions and remarked how sad it was "to have the power of a god and not use it godlike".
The situation was repeated in May 1862, when General David Hunter began enlisting black soldiers in the occupied district under his control. Soon afterwards Hunter issued a statement that all slaves owned by Confederates in his area (Georgia, Florida and South Carolina) were free. Despite the pleas of Salmon Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, Lincoln ordered Hunter to disband the 1st South Carolina (African Descent) regiment and to retract his proclamation.
During his presidency, Lincoln made it clear that the North was fighting the war to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. On August 22, 1862 he wrote a letter[2] in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune:
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I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." 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 is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves 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 to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
- I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Just one month after writing this letter, Lincoln issued his first Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that at the beginning of 1863, he would free slaves in states still in rebellion (as they came under Union control), not any slaves in states then loyal to the Union.
Also revealing was his letter[3] a year later to James C. Conkling of August 26, 1863, which included the following excerpt:
- There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt, returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us, since the issue of proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes believe the emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the Rebellion, and that at least one of these important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called abolitionism or with the Republican party policies but who held them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures and were not adopted as such in good faith.
- You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.
- I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.
Lincoln addresses the issue of his consistency (or lack thereof) between his earlier position and his later position of emancipation in an 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges[4].
Colonization
After the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's policies toward the slaves and freedmen (who together totalled almost 4 million after the war) are complex and shrouded in the mystery of incompleteness - due to his assassin's bullet in 1865. Lincoln was an advocate of colonization along with his political hero Henry Clay -- mentioning it favorably in his first Emancipation Proclamation. Backers of colonization believed that black ex-slaves were too different from whites to live in the same society, and therefore should be relocated to places outside the United States - in places such as Liberia in Africa, or to predominantly Black countries in the Caribbean such as Haiti, or even to a separate territory of the United States.
Lincoln's support for colonization appeared throughout his presidency. He appointed the Rev. James Mitchell as his Commissioner of Emigration to oversee colonization projects from 1861 through 1865. Between 1861 and 1862 Lincoln actively negotiated contracts with businessmen to colonize freed Blacks in Panama and on a small island off the coast of Haiti. The Haiti plan collapsed in 1862 and 1863 after swindling by the business agents responsible for the plan, prompting Lincoln to send ships to retrieve the colonists. The much larger Panama contract fell through in 1863 after the government of Colombia backed away from the deal and expressed hostility to colonization schemes. In 1862 Lincoln also convened a colonization conference at the White House where he addressed a group of freedmen and attempted to convince them of supporting his policy.
Despite the setbacks in Panama and Haiti, Lincoln planned to renew his push for colonization during his second term. About a week before the assassination, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler recalls a meeting with Lincoln at the White House, in which Lincoln asked him "But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free?" [5] He then asked Butler to consult Secretary of State William Seward and devise a colonization program for Panama. Butler would oversee the transfer beginning with the deployment of the United States Colored Troops to the isthmus, where they would be employed digging a Panama Canal. The plan was evidently abandoned after Lincoln's premature death – after the several failed attempts, only one member of his cabinet had still supported colonization, and without Lincoln's influence, its political support continued to wane.
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