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Abraham Lincoln's Letter To Abolitionist Horace Greeley

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Recommended: Analysis of Abraham Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley

As the United States began it’s transformation between 1854 to 1865, the man in the high chair of the United States Government had changes in his views on the issues of race and slavery in America. In a letter to abolitionist Horace Greeley just one year after the Civil War had started, Abraham Lincoln states that, “My paramount object in this struggle (the war) is to save the Union… and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.” In completely changing his personal views on the equality of all races, and by gradually moving towards the total abolishment of slavery, Abraham Lincoln led the movement towards the creation of a nation in which all humans are created equal.
The Kansas-Nebraska …show more content…

“They (the Founding Fathers, in the Declaration of Independance) meant to set up a standard maxim for free society… constantly looked to, constantly labored for… and thereby constantly spreading... the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere,” Lincoln said. Here, Lincoln's position on race is beginning to change. In another statement made during the speech, Lincoln states, “In some respects (a black woman) is certainly not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others...” This is the first time that Lincoln has broken off from the misogynistic, superioristic views that most white men held during this time. Although he is not yet viewing himself as equal to a black woman in terms of social hierarchy, he is indeed shedding life on the fact that she, and “all others” should indeed share the same natural rights. In 1858, during the election for United States senator of Illinois, seven debates took place between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, the incumbent Democratic Senator. In one of these debates, Lincoln changed his position on race in America. He states “Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.” “Uniting as one people” and the idea of mixing races was so unorthodox in the current situation of antebellum America. The South responded to this idea in September of 1864 in an anti republican and anti Abraham Lincoln political cartoon titled “The Miscegenation Ball” which depicts a united society where white men dance and flirt with black women. This cartoon puts forth the fear that many voters share about mixing white and black people in society. A large

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