Last Friday, 47 states observed Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when Union troops informed slaves in Texas that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth has special meaning this year as we continue a national debate about racial equality.
The Emancipation Proclamation was written by President Abraham Lincoln and took effect on January 1, 1863. Lincoln’s views on slavery and race would probably not win him any favors today. In his own time, people used the fact that he was born in a slave state (Kentucky) and moved to a free state (Illinois) as the basis for arguing that he was pro- or anti-slavery.
Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong. But he recognized that it was the multi-billion dollar basis for half the country’s economy. To avoid destroying half the economy, he advocated buying slaves and resettling them in Africa. The “back to Africa” adherents founded the colony of Liberia in 1821 for that purpose. Not even abolitionists believed in racial equality so resettlement seemed a good idea.
Lincoln also believed that slavery would die out if it was not allowed to spread to new states. So he supported the Great Compromise of 1850. The Compromise limited the western spread of slavery while also requiring northerners to return runaway slaves to the south. The deal offended everyone because of what they gave up but it averted secession and war.
Then the Supreme Court blew up the deal in 1857 in the Dred Scott decision. Chief Justice Roger Taney’s opinion said the Compromise was unconstitutional because the founders of the U.S. never intended to include black slaves in the “all men are created equal” phrase in the Declaration of Independence.
The Dred Scott decision became the backdrop for the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates that catapulted Lincoln to national fame. Douglas argued that local populations should decide whether to allow slavery. Lincoln sidestepped slavery and appealed for unity to preserve the country. Douglas was a hot-tempered alcoholic and Lincoln was a trial lawyer skilled at written and oral arguments. Guess who won the debates.
The debates put Lincoln on the Republican Party ticket for the 1860 presidential campaign. His campaign speeches rarely addressed the issue of slavery directly. Instead, he continued stressing the importance of holding the country together. As a result, abolitionists thought Lincoln was too pro-slavery and southerners that he was too pro-abolitionist. He was elected when the southern vote split between two candidates.
Lincoln’s first inaugural address in 1861 made one last push to head off secession and war. He offered to draft a Constitutional amendment that would make it unlawful for the federal government to interfere in the “domestic institutions” of a state. However, he emphasized that his role as president was to preserve the union.
Lincoln continued to support buying slaves so that the southern economy could transition to a new economic model. In December 1862, he asked Congress to draft an amendment to the Constitution that would offer cash payments to any state that freed its slaves before January 1, 1900.
The proposed amendment had a companion piece, the Emancipation Proclamation. It freed slaves only in states fighting the Union. The message to the South was clear: stop fighting and agree to free your slaves and we’ll pay you for your economic “loss”. At the time, the estimated value of the slaves was $3 billion.
The Emancipation Proclamation infuriated many northerners almost as much as it did southerners. Radical Republicans believed that Lincoln was too soft on the south. Lincoln outmaneuvered them to win reelection in 1864. His second inaugural address pleaded for reconciliation with the South.
It is impossible to know how our country’s racial debate might have changed if Lincoln’s conciliatory approach had prevailed. When John Wilkes Booth murdered Lincoln, he also screwed the country. The Radical Republicans seized control of Congress and proceeded to punish and humiliate the South. The South responded by glorifying the Confederacy and its symbols and creating Jim Crow laws that survived until the 1950’s.
New books about Lincoln arrive annually. A recent one is Every Drop of Blood, by Edward Achorn (2020) which focuses on Lincoln’s second inaugural address and includes vignettes of people who attended, including John Wilkes Booth. An older book is Abraham Lincoln: One Volume Edition, by Carl Sandberg (1966 edition; original multi-volume biography published in 1925). Sandberg interviewed old-timers whose parents had known Lincoln personally.
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