Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator

Abraham Lincoln was our sixteenth president. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery, or was supposed to end slavery. Our President did a lot of things for our country. Although his issue on the Emancipation Proclamation was not completely successful and he ordered it for all the wrong reasons. He accomplished great things but lost his reasoning closer to the end. On January 1st in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. There had been a lot of anticipation for this because the North had been waiting for Lincoln to issue a proclamation that declared the slaves free.

Although even when this happened, only some of the slaves were freed and the rest were freed when the Civil War ended.

As the text stated, in Document 3: “Writing the Emancipation Proclamation., “…abolitionist sentiment in the North, and a deteriorating military situation pushed Lincoln to consider abolishing slavery. In September 1862 Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.. This shows that everyone was waiting for Lincoln to issue the proclamation. Lincoln was a very strong and confident president but he was very indecisive at time. He gave multiple speeches in 1858 that contradicted each other. In his first speech in July, in New York, he talks about how all men should be equal, and we should put aside all the issues with race and ethnicity. When in this speech in September 1858, in Virginia, only two months after the first speech. His speech in September talks about how he does not think black men should be equal with white men, because whites are ‘superior’. Abraham’s opinion changed drastically over two months and it changed in a negative way. As the text states, in Document 1, “Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.. Then, in Document 2 it states, ” I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.

This states that before in July he believed everyone should be equal, and only two months later he stated the exact opposite. Some believe that Lincoln was the almighty because he put a end to slavery, which he deserves props for that. Slavery could have lasted for many more years if nothing had been done by Lincoln. He managed to abolish slavery and later on bring the Union to victory. Our country needs to remember that although he was a great man and accomplished great things, but he was battling for the wrong reasons. The text states, in Document 4, “My paramount [main] objective in this struggle [the Civil War] is to save the Union and is not either to save our destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. This text means that Lincoln never really wanted to do the right thing by freeing the slaves. Our president abolished slavery for the wrong reasons. He only cared about bringing the Union to safety and victory and that meant abolishing slavery to win. He managed to putting an end to slavery, although it was out of selfish ambitions. When he issued the proclamation he expected to boost the troops, and end up winning the war. We as a country had many problems but, this was a big issue that was ignored because everything was fixed. In conclusion this country should not let Lincoln be known as a great emancipator.

Did you like this example?

1089

57