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Exhibition Themes |
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1. Abraham Lincoln's ideas about slavery and abolition evolved over time.
Lincoln himself embodied the contradictions found in a republic which espoused
the ideals of liberty and equality, but also tolerated slavery. Lincoln was
against slavery, but for many reasons he was not an abolitionist who demanded
immediate emancipation of slaves.
2. The American Revolution left a contradictory
legacy of freedom and slavery. Most of the founding fathers thought
slavery was wrong, but they could envision no peaceful way to end
it. They hoped that gradual emancipation would somehow be achieved
in succeeding generations. This did not happen, and by 1830, abolitionists
began to demand immediate and unconditional freedom for slaves
and citizenship for blacks. Abolition was opposed by the majority of
whites in both North and South. Abraham Lincoln knew that a candidate
linked to abolitionism had no chance to win office.
3. Abraham Lincoln
was born in a slave state, Kentucky, but moved as a young man to
a free state, Illinois. His high ideals as a lawyer and politician in
Illinois were threatened by slavery. He believed that "every man"—including
the black man—was entitled to better his condition. But he thought that
a direct attack on slavery in the South would split the Union and
end America's
experiment in self-government. Lincoln and other moderates believed
that slavery could continue in the South for many more years, and
if it were confined to the South, it would eventually die out.
4. The issue
that finally divided the Union was the threatened spread of slavery
to the western territories through the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
Act in 1854. Lincoln and others opposed the expansion of slavery.
They believed that if slavery were extended to new territories, it would
soon be legal throughout the U.S., even in the North. In his unsuccessful
1858 Senate race against the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln
was painted as a radical abolitionist for his views. But his debates
with Douglas helped propel him to national renown, and led to a
successful run for the Presidency in November 1860 as an antislavery
moderate.
5. Protesting the election of an antislavery President, South
Carolina was the first state to secede from the United States of
America shortly after Lincoln's election, followed within three months by Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. The states soon established
themselves as the Confederate States of America. The first shots
of the Civil War were fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in
April 1861. Soon after, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas
seceded from the Union. Lincoln ordered federal troops to quell the rebellion
and restore the Union.
6. Early in the Civil War, Lincoln overturned
several orders to free slaves in Missouri and some of the Southern
states, fearing that border slaves states such as Maryland and Kentucky
would then join the Confederacy. His fragile coalition included the border
states, and he believed that Emancipation would shatter that coalition.
He drew up a plan that would have gradually freed slaves over many
years, until 1893, and would have compensated slave owners for their
human property. When his plan was rejected by the border states, Lincoln
decided that immediate emancipation was required both militarily, in
order for the Union to weaken the South by eliminating its slave labor
base, and for moral reasons, so that the Union would finally live up
to the ideals of the founding fathers.
7.Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on January
1, 1863, changed the character of the Civil War and the Union by declaring "forever
free" all
the enslaved people in the Southern states. For months, Lincoln
prepared the public for this move, saying that emancipation was
unlikely, but that he would use it, if necessary, to save the Union.
8. The Emancipation Proclamation settled the indeterminate legal
status of tens of thousands of runaway slaves, besides declaring
as free all people still enslaved. It also allowed blacks to enlist
in the Union army. The strength and courage of black volunteers helped
to change the public's views about
the character and abilities of an entire race. Nearly 40,000 black
soldiers gave their lives in the Union cause. |
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