Abraham Lincoln, Emancipator? by the Northern Rose

Abraham Lincoln, Emancipator? 

More than four score and seven years ago Abraham Lincoln made a speech so monumental that he would capture the heart of a nation in just two hundred and seventy-one words. The Gettysburg Address will be forever among the most important documents in American history. Lincoln’s Address spoke to a people desperate to keep a country together.

            Lincoln was not a great man, not a great speaker or politician, but he was what the country needed. If there was no Civil War there would most likely not have been a thirteenth amendment for quite some time, and there was every possibility that the thirteenth amendment would not end slavery. Contrary to popular belief, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery. It only ‘freed’ slaves in states that had already succeeded from the Union. In fact, such a Proclamation was only valid as a war time member. If the Confederacy had surrendered before the thirteenth amendment had passed than those that had been ‘freed’ would be enslaved yet again.

            Abraham Lincoln was not a great emancipator. Although he believed that slavery was wrong he was also aware that legally, he had no jurisdiction to actually free the slaves. If the people need a great emancipator than they should look to the likes of Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania member in the House of Representatives. He was the man who not only helped get the thirteenth amendment passed but also pushed for the full equality of African American people. He was the drafter of the fourteenth amendment and led a campaign that attempted to impeach President Andrew Johnson. This is the man we should thank for he tried to show the country what true equality would be. Abraham Lincoln gets credit for something he never tried to accomplish.

            But it is not at all fair to say that Abraham Lincoln was a bad person or President. Although he used a lot of tricky political moves that upset politicians and the people. Although, his actions were post humorously ruled against by the Supreme Court in the case Ex Parte Milligan. Lincoln is and will always be rated as one of the greatest Presidents in history. This is not because every American studies their history and decides that Lincoln was right to suspend the Constitution and became an eleven week dictator. I am sure if he had not reinstated the Constitution that we would be looking at him with an entirely different view.

            But Americans and the world smile upon the sixteenth President of the United States. He signed the Homestead Act of 1862 which gave poor applicants ownership of land at little or no cost. He created the United States Department of Agriculture. He signed the Morrill Land-Grant Act which created many of the Universities we know today. He created the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue (now the IRS) and helped establish the progressive nature of todays income tax system. He established the US National Banking System. Finally, He helped see to the end of the American Civil War.

            No, Abraham Lincoln was not a unflawed hero… but it would be unlikely that he would want to be seen as such. The sixteenth President of the United States was a troubled but self made man that we as Americans can look to for guidance (although not when it comes to suspending the Constitution). It is this writers opinion that the movie Lincoln (2012), although not entirely accurate, shows this great man as he ought to be remembered.

            So, in honor of the sixteenth President of the United States…
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here, It is for us the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." ~ Abraham Lincoln


Written by the Northern Rose