I have read what I posted 10 times and I can't find anywhere that I said the Civil War occured because of slavery, although it was a factor. I will post again what I said with some other facts on Lincoln's veiw of the Black man and slavery. Hope this clears up what I was talking about because I hate it when people read things into stuff that I have not said.
Originally Posted by skidoorulz
You need to remember the year. At that time in this country probably 99.9999% of all white people felt the same way. What Lincoln disagreed with was one man owning another man, no matter what race.
You are not serious about this statement are you? Ummmm the Civil War occured, due to the fact of many factors of a growing nation. The educations system was not turning a majority of scholars. Everyone had a diffrent opinion, based on their personal enviornment. Our Country had barely gained independece from the British. It was a war of Economy, Politics, Pride, and yes Slavery. Take it for what it is worth. My.o2
President Abraham Lincoln was always against slavery on moral grounds. However, he was not an admirer of the black man, did not believe blacks should be granted the rights of American citizens, and did not wish that they be a part of American society. He believed that all blacks should be removed from the United States and resettled in some other country.
Lincoln was against slavery. While it was true that he was not willing to go to war over slavery itself, that does not mean he supported slavery. Read his speeches that date back to the early 1850's in which he condemns slavery.
Abraham Lincoln's position on freeing the slaves was one of the central issues in American history. Though Abraham Lincoln has been one of the people identified as most responsible for the abolition of slavery, he maintained that the Constitution prohibited the federal government from abolishing slavery in states where it already existed. Initially, Lincoln expected to bring about the eventual extinction of slavery by stopping its further expansion into any U.S. territory, and by offering compensated emancipation (an offer accepted only by Washington, D.C). The Republican Party platform in 1860, was that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any more territories. Most Americans agreed that if all future states admitted to the Union were to be free states, that slavery would eventually become extinct.
In 1842, Lincoln had married into a prominent Kentucky family of slaveowners.(His brother-in-law, Ben Hardin Helm would later serve as a Brig. General in the Confederacy, leading the 1st Kentucky Cavalry of the Orphan Brigade.) Lincoln returned to the political stage as a result of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act and soon became a leading opponent of the Slave Power--that is the political power of the southern slave owners. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, written to form the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, included language, designed by Stephen A. Douglas, which allowed the settlers to decide whether they would or would not accept slavery in their region. Lincoln saw this as a repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise which had outlawed slavery above the 36-30' parallel.
Lincoln's critics, especially abolitionists and Radical Republicans, said he moved too slowly as President to end slavery. In his written response to Horace Greeley's editorial , having already discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet, Lincoln wrote, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that...I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."
During the American Civil War, Lincoln used the war powers of the presidency to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free" but exempted border states and those areas of slave states already under Union control. As a practical matter, at first the Proclamation could only be enforced to free those slaves that had already escaped to the Union side. However, millions more were freed as more areas of the South came under Union control.