Emancipating America's Liberia: The Change of Lincoln's Emancipation Policy from 'slow and Gradual' to a 'military Necessity'

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Lincoln's Election, The Country's First Threat to Slavery: November 1860 to March 4th, 1861

Lincoln, 16th president of the United States as of November 6, 1860, tried to build relations with the South throughout the former half of his presidency. The North, including Lincoln, and the South repelled each other for obvious reasons, however, Lincoln wanted to get more support from the South as interestingly, he received little to no votes in some states of the South. The South, wanting slavery to be able to expand, clashed with Lincoln as they believed his true intention was to get rid of slavery in their respective states. Threatened of the possible consequences of his time in office, the unamendable Crittenden Compromise as a pre-emptive strike to the Lincoln's plans to abolish slavery and risk a comfortable means of profit as so perceived by the South.

South Carolina's response a month after Lincoln's election was to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860, as the Republican's plan to eradicate slavery slowly and gradually was threatening to their means of life, sustainability, and Constitutional right of property. South Carolina sought the conviction that the Union was deliberately violating the Constitution to their disadvantage: “[the Union's] avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the other states." So, the State of South Carolina therein declared themselves, “dissolved" as a part of the Union, and therefore, the New Country of South Carolina-- "as a separate and independent state”. Assumable feeling just as South Carolina did, South Carolina's caused,

"seven states had seceded from the Union..." within three months of Lincoln's election.

Therefore, the Confederate States of America came into existence.

Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky, in order to benefit, therein please his party and to seemingly, “preserve the Union through a series of actions" proposed a plan that would in fact, "protect the institution of slavery”[15]. Lincoln immediately rejected the compromise, though some historians fault him for doing so, because if accepted, the act would counter the Republican Party’s fundamental principles—as personal desires on slavery—including the most important attribute: that slavery cannot and should not expand. In order to cause the compromise not to be passed, Lincoln proceeded "to undermine it”. Lincoln used his connections with other senators and congressmen to his advantage in order to gain support on his position; Lincoln did this by mailing out “a flurry of letters to congressional Republicans, giving orders to oppose any compromise”[16] that would allow slavery to expand. Of these letters, Lincoln addressed a Representative called William Kellogg from Illinois and a later letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley in 1862, explaining his mind-set at the time. Lincoln directed Kellogg, a member under his same party to, "entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labour is lost’”[17] as if to remind Kellogg of the fundamental principles and goals of Republicanism and coerce Kellogg to follow his for that very reason. To Greeley, Lincoln confessed that despite all else, " [the] paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.’”[18] Nonetheless, Lincoln's “object had always been to save the Union his way".[19] Lincoln wanted to save the Union, yes, but according to his own principles, what is allowed for by the Constitution, and in a way that the North and South are either pleased or forced to comply.

Lincoln's first inaugural of March 4th, 1861 served the desperate purpose of addressing the arising concerns about South Carolina's succession, hopefully suppressing other (most Southern) state's inclination to do the same, and to assumingly reiterate Lincoln's slavery views to the American public. Lincoln shames South Carolina as he contends that there were not defensible reasons for their succession, in fact, the South Carolinian succession was a threat to the country as a whole: Lincoln acknowledges that, "the southern States [must believe] that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered”[20]. However, Lincoln refutes this assertion in saying that he had never intended to threaten their property, peace, not security as he never intended to remove slavery from the states in which it already exists. And, he goes on to repeat as done in his House Divided speech, "[I have] no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists."

The Red and Black War: Contraband Slave Involvement's Shaping of Lincoln's Slavery Views from April 4th, 1861 to September 1861

The commencement of the Civil War marked a point of no return for Lincoln, Lincoln's fawning over the interests of the South was over, Lincoln proceeded to prioritising the war as a way to save the Union especially considering how quickly the country was being divided. By 1861, the Confederacy was formed by the lower 7 succeeded states. By the beginning of the war in 1862, 11 states had formed the confederacy. It was clear that there was no way that Lincoln could resolve this issue through words. From the beginning of the Civil War up until the Fremont Controversy, Lincoln was not aware of the constraints on slavery were changing, new loopholes were arising, and slavery would soon become a valuable asset in the winning of the Civil War by the North.

At the start of the war, Lincoln was not yet aligned with the idea that slavery could potentially help the war effort. His goal was to still all together stop "slavery, race, and emancipation"[21] as Lincoln did not think the ending of slavery was not a necessity, the war could be fought without doing so. Lincoln, however, was mistaken. Though urged by other

Republicans to emancipate the slaves in order to Lincoln continuously stated that his only goal was to reconstruct the Union, not to end slavery as a whole. However, in light of all of the fighting and combat, three slaves managed to get away: "a little more than a month into the Civil

War, three young black men rowed across the James River... [and] claimed asylum"[22] and this brought up the notion of whether or not runaway slaves should be allowed to fight for the opposing side.