Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War by Michael Johnson

Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War by Michael Johnson

Abraham Lincoln is an example of a leader who greatly affected a social justice movement by providing leadership during a complex of interrelated historical moments. Johnson (2000) mentions that Lincoln did not participate in a social justice movement for strictly moral, religious, or ethical reasons. Lincoln, most famous as the 16th president of the United States, took office during a time of great political, economic, cultural, and social turmoil that was largely due to slavery. Lincoln is often credited with freeing the slaves with the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Q. 1: Why does Lincoln object to the Kansas-Nebraska Act? How Does His Language And Reasoning Differ in the Public and Private Communications? What Arguments Does He Use in Both Cases?

Lincoln objects to the Kansas-Nebraska Act because he thought that there was a moral right, as people of the era thought, in making one enslaved. He himself mentions “I particularly object to the NEW position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there CAN be MORAL RIGHT in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people—a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity we forget right—that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed, and rejected it. The argument of “Necessity'' was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only as it carried them, did they ever go. . . . The plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the PRINCIPLE, and toleration, ONLY BY NECESSITY (Johnson, 2000).

Lincoln further adds “. . . Let us turn slavery from its claims of “moral right,'' back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of “necessity.'' Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations” (Johnson, 2000). These are some of the reasons why Lincoln objects to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Q. 2: How Do Lincoln's House Divided Speech (pp. 63-69) and His Comments during the Seventh Lincoln-Douglas Debate (pp 78-80) Differ from His Comments Four Years Earlier?

In words of Johnson (2000) Lincoln's House Divided Speech (pp. 63-69) and his comments during the Seventh Lincoln-Douglas ...