Essays: 2011 Hildene Brown 8th Grade Lincoln Essay Contest Winners
3rd Place Essay by Giorgina Giampaolo
In response to the question: "If Lincoln was willing to tolerate slavery in the southern states, why was he so vehemently opposed to its expansion into the territories?"
Abraham Lincoln was never a strong supporter of slavery. Yet, he was not willing to declare himself an abolitionist as it would not have been politically advantageous to him. It is doubtful that an abolitionist could have been elected President, so Lincoln's more moderate beliefs served him well politically. Still, his moral views led him to write, in an August 1855 letter to Joshua Speed, "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.'"
As a lawyer and a moderate politician, Lincoln was constrained about what he could do and say about slavery. Like many of his contemporaries, Lincoln believed that states should decide whether slavery should be allowed within their borders. Only in the territories did the federal government have jurisdiction over slavery. In his Cooper Union Address of February 1860, Lincoln explained that 21 of the 39 men who signed the Constitution thought that slavery should not be allowed in the territories. Thus, he believed that he was following the lead of the Founding Fathers.
Lincoln's primary concern as a politician was to preserve the Union. Still, Lincoln did not favor the expansion of slavery. If new territories were allowed to be established as slave states, the balance of power in the Union would shift and slavery would expand. Although Lincoln repeatedly stated that he found slavery to be morally objectionable, he was willing to put his moral beliefs aside to advance his political ideals. In his letter to Horace Greeley in August 1862, Lincoln wrote that his main goal was to save the Union, not slavery. He stated, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery . . . What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union."
Lincoln was against slavery, yet he did not feel that he should take action against slavery. Lincoln's April 1864 letter to Albert Hodges summarized his seemingly contradictory position. "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling."
As time progressed, Lincoln's hopes of saving the Union were crushed by the outbreak of the Civil War. Still, Lincoln strove to bring the North and South back together, and abolishing slavery would ultimately help hold the re-joined Union together. What Lincoln viewed as morally right and just would not be acceptable today, but he was a man of his times whose actions changed the direction of American history.