Abe Lincoln's Mission

Fire of Liberty

For the History buffs, here a great piece by Mackubin Thomas Owens over at National Review Online on Lincoln's original strategy in ending slavery in the US. As Owens notes that throughout history that Lincoln's detractors have claimed that he wasn't interested in ending slavery when he entered the White House. (Even though the GOP was partially created to the ending of slavery). Luckily for Lincoln's supporters there's a book by Allen Guelzo titledLincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, which shows Lincoln coming into the Presidency with a well developed policy. Take a gander at Owens wonderful description of Lincoln's policy:

Guelzo argues persuasively that Lincoln’s “face was set toward the goal of emancipation from the day he first took the presidential oath.” To achieve this goal, he planned to pursue a policy of legislated, gradual, compensated emancipation from the very outset of his presidency. He believed he could convince Congress to appropriate funds for compensating slave owners to gradually free their slaves. His plan was to begin where slavery was weakest: in the northern-most slave states, especially Delaware.

The key to his strategy was to prevent the expansion of slavery into the federal territories while working to convince the legislatures of slave states to changes their statutes relating to slavery. After all, the Constitution left the issue of slavery to the states. This state legislative strategy also offered the best chance for keeping the issue of emancipation out of the federal court system, where an unfavorable judgment, a likelihood as long as Roger Taney was chief justice, could set back its prospects.

As with most good policies, they start off good but eventually get mired in the meat-grinder of state and federal governments. It also got side-tracked with the Civil War and thus the emergence of plan B, The Emancipation Proclamation. Luckily, this worked. Enjoy the read.