The Great Emancipator

(This post is from my homework for American History 2)

Although his overall stance might be characterized as a bit compromising by some standards, in 1837 Mr. Lincoln spoke publicly of the "injustice and bad policy" of the slave trade. Mr. Lincoln was part of the Whig party. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the election of 1848. Congressman Lincoln was a politician, without a doubt, but in his law practice, he took the part of advocate for slaves, which is where he absolutely earned the title the "Great Emancipator." While more radical abolitionists advocated succession from the Union because of slavery, Mr. Lincoln understood he was attempting to challenge some of the most powerful lobbyists in the history of the United States, and he was determined to fight that battle.

He later attempted to unite the Whig party regarding the slavery issue, but he did not go unchallenged. In 1849, newly elected Congressman Lincoln penned a bill to abolish slavery in the city limits of Washington D.C. in response to a livery stable that was a holding location for slaves who were being shipped to the South. Prominent southerners visited his backers and persuaded them to abandon the bill. It seems to me that Mr. Lincoln was a strategist, and the provisions of the bill shed light on his long term plan as an abolitionist Whig. It included the following:

1. Abolish slavery in D.C. (free all slaves existing there and prohibit any new slaves)
2. Temporary apprenticeship for newborn children of slaves.
3. Cash value from the US Gov't treasury for applicable slaves
4. Prohibiting all slave trade in the city limits
5. Existing Fugitive Slave law remains in force
6. Provision for a local popular vote by all males to see if the bill would be passed.

There is no doubt that various interpretations about Lincoln, slavery, the Civil war and the Reconstruction range according to the radically different conceptual lenses of the historians and observers who comment on them. I would submit that the current accepted interpretation of the 1860 Slavery and Reconstruction issue lacks the passion of the day and a complete grasp of the southern situation for blacks and whites, alike.

A good sampling of the bias in interpretations about Reconstruction, specifically, are the writings of William Dunning contrasted with WEB DuBois. The popularity of the film "Birth of a Nation" is another good example of the way a society looks at history through a variety of cultural norms, and reevaluating those norms is appropriate, and it can improve where the moderate perspective lay on the gradient. But we are in danger of forgetting what a system of terror looks like, and if we do not learn from our mistakes quickly, this lack of perspective threatens to overwhelm us on the two plus fronts of the war we fight today.

I grew up in the south, and perhaps I have a different perspective on the whole thing, but having spent so many years in the southern culture, I've spent a lot of time in personal reflection about this issue. My great grandfather owned a plantation, complete with slaves, and my grandmother was reared by a slave woman who stayed with my great-grandfather until her dying days. My grandmother was a gentle woman who faced many hardships, and she always addressed this issue with respect and a disposition of equality for blacks, although the culture she grew up in interpreted that equality in a way I do not agree with.