Abraham Lincoln's Letter To Greeley

A common misconception regarding the ideals of President Abraham Lincoln is that many thought that the 16th President of the United States was a true abolitionist from the very beginning of the civil war, however that was not the case since the President was actually more concerned about keeping the Union intact rather than freeing slaves. The New York Times published a letter penned from Lincoln to Horace Greeley who was once editor-in-chief at The New York Tribune as well as a congressman and presidential candidate. This letter is of importance because Lincoln clearly states his intentions of the war to Greeley who may have been mistaken that Lincoln wanted to primarily free slaves. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery…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.”

As the war progressed and evolved, so did Lincoln’s mindset.

The president started to take notice of how effective runaway slaves were when it came to the military since slaves who fled their owners would often sign up to fight for the union. Following the Confederacy’s Defeat at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation which sounded nice in theory, but actually proved to be more of symbol of what Lincoln’s new intentions where rather than something that can actually be used to free slaves since the confederacy did not abide by this proclamation because it was only applied to border states as well as land that was once controlled by the South but now controlled by the Union. After the first vote regarding the implementation of the 13th amendment described in the prompt, Lincoln has at this point made abolishing slavery just as big of a priority as preserving the

union.
At the 1864 Republican Convention, Lincoln acknowledged that an amendment calling for the banning of slavery is a necessity for ending the Civil War, encouraging slavery’s “utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic." (uexpress.com). The 1864 election that saw Lincoln return to the White House put him in a better position than ever before for abolishing slavery since there were more party seats in his favor this time around. Lincoln knew this favorable position wouldn’t last long and wanted to act before the new congress would be inaugurated. Aided by Secretary of State William Seward, Lincoln propositioned defeated Democrats in congress by offering them lucrative jobs in the new administration and for the most part, they accepted. The following vote ultimately went in Lincoln’s favor and slavery would be abolished. However, the 13th amendment would not be enacted until the approval by a three quarter majority of the states, which occurred when Georgia approved the measure on December 6, 1865.