Marylous place

200 Years ago today, Abraham Lincoln was born. Over the years, I have read so many articles on him, both positive and negative. I really do not know what to think of him. Was he a great uniter, or was he in actuality a great divider? Did he cause the Civil War? Or was he making the nation strong? What would our Nation look like today if the Civil War had never happened? Would our states eventually changed their laws and made slavery illegal all over the nation? or would we still have slavery had Abe Lincoln never gone to Washington?

Could we have done a greater service to our country by avoiding the Civil War that killed HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Americans? At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000.


To many, Lincoln was all in it to free the slaves, but this letter to Horace Greeley shows this is not the case. His purpose was to save the Union, not to free the slaves.

Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862

Hon. Horace Greeley:

Dear Sir. I have just read yours of the 19th addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to 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 slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I don't believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be error; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of Official duty: and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln

Source: "Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings" edited by Roy Basler

You can decide for yourself, but I read this to say Slavery really did not matter to Lincoln one way or the other his concern was to preserve the Union, not to free the slaves. So I think having him as a savior of the slavery movement is ridiculous! He did not free the slaves out of a conviction that slavery was wrong, he did it to save the USA. He does say his preference is that every man be free, but after reading this letter I do not know how anyone can think any differently on this issue. The war from his point of view was over the Union and States rights, not slavery.