Throughout the history of America, the meaning of what it means to be an American has changed. The times have progressed over hundreds of years. For the most part, these changes have been gradual and slow. Some of the biggest changes in history, took place in the civil war era. In Abraham Lincolns A House Divided, he talks about the major discourse over the topic of slavery. This was a time when the current American values and what American is becoming, was up for debate. In the late 1850s, the Americans had been divided on the issue of slavery. It was so deeply divided it threatened to tear apart the American people. Before Lincoln was President, he was an Illinois senator doing the best he could to try to repair the American way of life. …show more content…
The tensions where so high, Lincoln knew it could be the collapse over everything that America has built up. Lincoln knew something had to be done to save America from an impending crisis. The most famous line from this speech that summarizes how Lincoln felt on the situation is, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (Lincoln, 732) He knew the South was unwilling to give up their slaves, and the north was unwilling to let them have slaves. At this point in American history, people where very opinionated over this, and Lincoln was trying to stop and impending civil war. Even if it meant the outcome he wanted wasn’t …show more content…
Lincoln was well educated over current case-law problems pertaining too slave and free states. Over one of the worst decisions ever made by the Supreme Court, the Dred Scott decision threatened to bring slavery into the North. Lincoln was stressing the fact that if something wasn’t done, slavery would no doubt trickle out of the South, and into the rest of America. While the Supreme Court was fumbling and backtracking, there was another law that brought slavery closer. The Kansas-Nebraska bill overrode previous legislation and allowed white male residents to vote on whether to permit slavery therein. Lincoln was stressing the fact that this is real and
Lincoln tried to convince himself that the South could keep slavery and that eventually slavery would just fade away. However, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 changed the Presidents outlook
During Abraham Lincoln’s presidency at the start of the 1860, an issue that had divided the nation was slavery. Lincoln’s election to presidency as a republic was not received well by the Southern slave states, as they thought that as a republican he was out to abolish slavery. In an effort to calm southern states and keep them from seceding from the United States, he attempts to ease them with his First Inaugural Address. In his First Inaugural Address his key points are to clam southern leaders of slave states, keep the states from seceding, and make them at ease as he enters presidency.
Abraham Lincoln has always been one of the most researched and talked about presidents in American history. Lincoln historically was known for his emancipation of the slaves and his leadership throughout the Civil War. Foner digs past what a normal student would learn within their average history textbook. Foner analyzes the year prior to his election as both the Illinois Senator and his election as president. This in depth analysis allows the reader to finally fully understand how Lincoln built his ideals and his thinking behind the Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Illinois Senate seat.
Isidore E. Sharpe Professor Tracy Moore HIS 104: American History 29 November 2017 Summary Paper on House Divided, the Civil War, and Reconstruction Slavery had been the United States economic machine, most would speak of it as their bread and butter. Every President in America history had owned slaves. Now, slavery would soon become a house divider, where some Americans believed that slavery was unconstitutional and should be abolished. As of the 1840s slavery was just in words to some people, but slavery would be at the center of nation’s government, along with the annexation of Texas.
President Abraham Lincoln came across multiple issues during the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Some of the political issues had to deal with the border states. In the back of his mind, he mostly wanted to get rid of slavery, but the border states don’t want slavery to be abolished, and Lincoln knew this. Lincoln didn’t want to start the war because he wanted to seem as the good guy trying to defend himself, and not attack someone else, so he can persuade the border states to join his side. Along with this, he didn’t know when to publish the Emancipation Proclamation because he didn’t want to seem desperate for help.
Lincoln also spoke out to the legislatures about outlawing slavery. Both candidates fired back at each other about who was right and who wasn’t, they also seemed to like “calling out” each other's plans and futuristic
Before he fought for the Senate seat in Illinois and before he was elected President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln was merely a man from Illinois who cultivated a set of beliefs and morals that would guide him and his country through one of the most difficult times in its history. One of the most revered presidents in American history, Lincoln emancipated southern slaves and lead his country through a civil war. It was his responses to the Dred Scott case and Senator Douglas and his debates throughout the 1850’s that helped shape the type of president, he would become. Lincoln recognized the burgeoning divide in American society just prior to the Lincoln-Douglas debates and addressed this disunion in order to garner the attention
In the summer of 1862, Lincoln said himself, “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.” However this was before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The same summer he said this, the border states had rejected compensated emancipation. This was when he realized that the emancipation of slaves was important. He stressed that emancipation would “strike at the heart of the rebellion.’’
The arguments presented by Abraham Lincoln in his debates with Stephen A. Douglas have had a lasting effect on national politics. From 1858 through 1861, Lincoln’s arguments helped to shape the national discourse surrounding slavery and challenged the dominant narrative of the time. Lincoln's arguments helped to build a moral ground for the Republican Party and led to the establishment of the Republican Party as an anti-slavery party. The debates also brought Lincoln's name and reputation to a national stage and helped to pave the way for his election as President in 1860. The arguments about slavery presented by Abraham Lincoln in his debates with Stephen A. Douglas affected national politics as Abraham Lincoln was known nationally by the debates and the freeport doctrine had affected Douglas negatively.
We can state the obvious, that we are not all perfect, and we certainly say things we don’t mean. Was President Lincoln really a racist? There is documented text that could point evidence that leans in either direction. Things said in the heat of long debates and drawn out conversations that ran for hours, does not make such a monumental man a poor or hypocritical person. Looking at the Constitutional right that “All men are created equal” to the thought that things won’t change without action, and to a man with no moral obligation other than to share his personal option that slavery was wrong, we dive into President Lincoln.
While looking at a map of the electoral college vote (Doc. H), it is clear that the country was geographically divided, and this had the result of increased feelings of separation for the South, from the rest of the country. Lincoln realized that no more compromises could be made, and during a speech in Alton, Illonois, he tried to turn the issues away from the main topic which resulted in all the compromises, slavery (Doc. G). In a way he was making another compromise, but the South did not like it one bit, so they later succeed from the
At the start of the Civil War, Lincoln used the power of the North’s navy. The navy of the North was really strong compared to that of the South’s naval force. The North ended up closing the ports of the Southern states, which prevented the South from getting war supplies from Europe. Lincoln also realized that the Mississippi River was for splitting the South in half. Lincoln also had internal problems of his role as commander-in-chief.
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Rhetorical Analysis The purpose of this speech is detailed in the time period. This speech was written/spoken at the end of the American Civil war. It is President Lincoln’s way of putting a tentative end to the war and a start to the recovery period. He is still oppressing the south in his diction when he states “Both parties deprecated war: but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.
In this election, Lincoln and Douglas had some series of debates over slavery. Although Lincoln never exactly stated that he wanted to abolish slavery, much of the South believed he was an Abolitionist. At his speech in 1858 in Springfield Illinois, Lincoln wanted the nation to be one thing or another, meaning all free or all slave, because it couldn’t keep going on how it was, else it would fall apart. In his speech, Lincoln said, “...but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other” (Doc G).
President Lincoln stated that: “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 do it.”. This quote clearly shows that the freedom of slaves was not his concern and unnecessary if it did not help the Union; as the result, slavery still exists if there is no war. Free slave from bondage should be a Great Emancipator’s primary goal and he will do his best to achieve it no matter what, but president Lincoln’s thought differed from that because all he cares was the Union. Although he had many times admitting himself an anti-slavery but his words and thoughts obviously prove that he is