Lincoln First Inaugural Address Analysis

“Slavery is the cause of this whole war!” –General Grant probably because you shouldn’t take the cause of anything for Grant-ed
“I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” (Lincoln, “House Divided Speech”) Shortly after Lincoln spoke these words in 1858, the Confederate states officially seceded in 1860. This divided the nation in two and began a civil war that would last until May of 1865. Although the cause of the war was later twisted into looking like states’ rights, the actual cause of the Civil War was slavery.
Two years before the Civil War officially began, people were already wary of the problems that slavery could cause in the nation. In his “House Divided” Speech at the Republican Convention in

Referring to South Carolina’s declaration of secession, Lincoln says “All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be maintained.” (Lincoln, First Inaugural Address) He is addressing the Fugitive Slave Law here, and South Carolina’s claim of the Northern States violated it, which they did, albeit sneakily. He then follows with a long message about how he can see “no party [that] can reach to the audacity of doing this” (Lincoln, First Inaugural Address) and that “any document of reasonable length [can] contain express provisions for all possible questions.” (Lincoln, First Inaugural Address) Lincoln then goes on to name the only major dispute that he sees in the country as “[o]ne section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.” (Lincoln, First Inaugural Address) Clearly, Lincoln sees the dispute over slavery as the cause of the Confederate States seceding, and the cause of the Civil

In his Secession Message to Congress in which he got permission to pay for the war, Lincoln defines the war as being “essentially a people’s contest” (Lincoln, Special Secession Message) with two sides. He defines the first side as the Union, which struggles “to elevate the condition of men” (Lincoln, Special Secession Message) by lifting weights (of slavery) from all shoulders, by making all paths clear for all men, and giving everyone an unfettered (with the chains of slavery) start. Lincoln leaves the other side as the direct opposite of this: the Confederacy, which wishes to keep certain men enslaved and unequal. Lincoln also blames slavery as the cause of the war in his second inaugural address by saying “slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.” (Lincoln, Special Secession Message)
After the Civil War, the opinions on the cause of the Civil War began to change. Many Southerners started to argue, against the evidence, that the Confederate States had seceded because of the issue of states’ rights, not the issue of slavery. This idea about the cause of the Civil War became the “Lost Cause” movement, which gained popularity in movies such as Gone with the Wind. Eventually, many people believed the misconception that the Civil War had started over states’ rights, when, in reality, it had started over