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Summary Of James Mcpherson's Essay On Slavery

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Throughout the essay by James McPherson multiple evidence is used to get to his point of who freed the slaves. All of the evidence he uses is valid because it all is directed at the question he has posed. Also all of the evidence used has sources and can tracked to credible sources such as the evidence given by Robert F.Engs on page 193 which was taken from his lecture to the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.The evidence that stands out as convincing is the evidence that is directed at the question but is not obviously answering the question or obviously known. An example of this is the evidence taken from Francis B. Carpenter's book Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln, “I did not consider that I had a right to touch the ‘State’ institution of ‘Slavery’ until all other measures of restoring the Union had failed. . . .”(Carpenter 76-77). This specific evidence is very convincing because it answers the question that Abraham Lincoln did free the slaves,since this quote is from his point of view, and the fact that Lincoln did not want to abolish slavery until all other options of keeping the Union together were …show more content…

He also sets up his argument in a way that makes sense and where he is able to state a fact but also explain it in the terms of the question he is trying to answer. He is also able to look beyond the facts and quotes he has stated and add more information to put them into context. He is also able to ignore obvious facts that are detrimental to his position. This is shown the paragraph above with the quote from Carpenter. It is obvious that Lincoln's main goal was to restore the Union. Yet by using this quote McPherson is trying to step away from the obvious fact and show that while Union preservation was the main goal freeing the slaves was the last resort in preserving the Union, which is less

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