Abraham Lincoln's Stance On Slavery

Lincoln’s Stance on Slavery Abraham Lincoln’s views on slavery changed as his political career advanced. Depending on what age Lincoln was when we are looking at him dictates where he could be placed on the spectrum. Looking at his early life he could be classified as a moderate and later on in his life he could be classified as a radical. Growing up Abraham’s father Thomas and mother Nancy were anti-slavery and were suspected to have moved to Indiana because it was a free state. In his younger life he absorbed his parent’s views on slavery and stated that he was “’naturally anti-slavery’ and added that he could not remember a time when he was opposed to slavery” (Gienapp 3). This “indifference” could classify him as a moderate towards slavery.

His reasoning behind the way he voted is “the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.” (Gienapp 23). Abraham’s views on slavery would change over time and eventually help his win the presidency, but at this time the area that he was in was very much abolitionist and did not care to hear about Lincoln’s conservative views. He often makes that argument that even if the government were to annex slavery it would not completely halt the exchange of slaves. Slavery would be around until it slowly digressed on its

When he realized his bill would not pass he decided to vote for another bill abolishing slavery from the district. This bill failed as well. A few years later he was caught in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the people to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery in into those territories. This was the turning point for his views on slavery, he stated that “The true intent of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he contended, was to allow slavery to expand, and he dismissed as ‘a lullaby’ the idea that climate, soil or anything but statutory prohibition would keep slavery out of Kansas.” (Gienapp 51). Lincoln made a powerful moral statement against Douglas after he said he was indifferent to the expansion of slavery:
I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world -enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of liberty -criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest (Gienapp