Emancipation as a weapon in the Civil War

Only after 1863 did the North officially declared abolition of slavery as the focal point of the Civil War. Before that I believe the war was a result of two economies struggling to exist side by side. Lincoln first and foremost wanted to compromise between the two sides. The North wanted every man to have the chance to prosper through free labor. Slavery put a damper on the ideology of free labor. Slavery “spawned a social order consisting of degraded slaves, poor whites with no hope of advancement, and idle aristocrats” (Foner 463) according to the ideology of free labor.

In comparison of economies, The North was highly industrious; it had mills and factories. The image of "colonial" America was becoming a page in history. People were becoming more dependent on manufactured goods rather than producing for themselves. Women were working through out work, and white women were being used as nurses and teachers in both the North and South during the war and Reconstruction. The South was still the sight of the plantation, dependent on the land to make their living. Slavery was a huge money maker in cotton lands rather than tobacco lands. To be honest, one of the reasons why the North stopped returning slaves to the South during the war was because they realized they were handing back the South’s economy!

While we pride Lincoln on being a great abolitionist, he was also a good politician. He wanted to hold back emancipation until he absolutely had to. It wasn’t his primary goal until 1863 when free and enslaved blacks fought to change minds. In fact in 1862 while meeting with black leaders, he attempted to persuade leaders to a migration back to Africa and islands off the Haitian coast.

The conclusion to “free” the slaves in 1863 was also a decision to persuade Britain from acknowledging the South as an independent nation. But above all the decision to declare the Proclamation on January 1, 1863 was to bolster the acceptance of free blacks in the North after a “win”…this “win” being the retreat of Lee’s troops at Antietam. He issued a statement telling the South to lay down arms or else abolition will become the North’s new weapon.

While abolition did occur, I feel too much emphasis is based on Lincoln’s “Emancipator” image. He really used politics and Emancipation as a last resort because in reality he wanted to preserve the Union as a whole. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve the acknowledgment he has, but to look at all the facts and realize…he was also a simple human with a brain.

Work Cited

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.