Lincoln and Slavery

by Peter Burchard

Overview

Why did Abraham Lincoln approve of compromises over slavery?
How could he have thought that most black Americans would accept voluntary segregation as the way to freedom?
Why, in spite of Lincoln's shortcomings, did the black leader Frederick Douglass think that the president's accomplishments were more remarkable than those of the founding fathers?
In providing at least partial answers to these questions, Lincoln and Slavery gives us a fresh look at a subject often shadowed by misinformation.
Here, we follow the young Lincoln as he takes an interest in the law and becomes a legislator. In a series of debates with his political opponent Stephen Douglas, we hear Lincoln argue forcefully that slavery, if allowed to spread, would destroy democracy.
As Lincoln and Slavery focuses on Lincoln's years as president, we see him work on the Emancipation Proclamation — which changed the purpose of the Civil War and welcomed black men into military service. We go with him to Gettysburg, where he reaffirms "the proposition that all men are created equal." We listen to him, only weeks before his death, as he proclaims that the Union armies will keep fighting "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid for by another drawn with the sword."
This is the story of a great American, a man who hated slavery and believed, above all else, that democracy was the best hope for humankind — in his time and in all the years to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689815706
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/01/1999
Edition description:	Illustrate
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	1220L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Peter Burchard (1921–2004) was the author of over twenty fiction and nonfiction books for young readers and adults, including One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment, a major historical source for the motion picture Glory, which won three Academy Awards. Two of his books were listed by the American Library Association as notable books. The New York Times praised him highly, saying that “he uses historical fact with skill” and describing him as having “a splendid facility for characterization.” He lived in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

At noon, on September 22, 1862, all seven of the president's close advisors joined him in his office, which served also as his cabinet room. They gathered at one end of a long, black walnut table, near his worn and cluttered desk.

All knew that this was not to be an ordinary meeting. So as to relieve the tension, Lincoln read aloud a story — "High-Handed Outrage at Utica" by humorist Artemis Ward — which he thought immensely funny. Stanton, who had by then replaced Cameron as secretary of war, sat unsmiling through the short recitation. Others, understanding Lincoln's need to relax and clear the air, laughed or nodded pleasantly.

Lincoln finished reading, then explained the purpose of the meeting. He said that he had been preoccupied with "the relation of the War to Slavery." He thought that the time had come to issue a proclamation dealing with that relation. He said, "I wish it were a better time."

In wishing it had been a better time, he was thinking of a battle fought five days before in Sharpsburg, Maryland. In the Battle of Antietam, a potentially overwhelming Union force under General George B. McClellan had compelled a Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee to withdraw and recross the Potomac. Lincoln knew that if McClellan had chased Lee, he could have captured him and his exhausted men and brought the Union to the verge of victory. But the most costly single day of fighting in the war had killed or wounded more than 23,000 soldiers — Union and Confederate — and produced little more than a standoff. A young Union officer long remembered what had followed the tumult: "At last night came on, and, with the exception of an occasionalshot from the outposts, all was quiet. The crickets chirped, and the frogs croaked, just as if nothing had happened all day long, and presently the stars came out bright, and we lay down among the dead, and slept soundly until daylight."

As Lincoln talked to the members of his cabinet, he understated what he felt about McClellan's lack of fighting spirit. "The action of the army against the rebels has not been quite what I should have best liked...."

Lincoln went on to say, "When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland to issue a proclamation of emancipation...." Before he started reading what came to be called the "Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation," he added, "I do not wish your advice about the main matter — for that I have determined for myself."

It had taken Lincoln three months to complete the document he read aloud on September 22. In the spring of 1862, as he thought about its composition, he was in deep mourning for his third son, Willie, who had died on February 20, following an attack of typhoid fever. The death of Willie, who was bright and handsome, left the family devastated. When Lincoln looked down at his dead son's face, he said softly, "He was too good for this earth...."

Later, Lincoln went to his office, and when the thin and bearded Nicolay rose to greet him, Lincoln said, "Well, Nicolay, my son is gone...." Willie's funeral took place in a driving rain. In the time remaining to him, Lincoln sometimes shut himself away so that he could cry alone. As much as two years after Willie's death, continuing his practice of reciting passages from Shakespeare's plays, he was reading to a friend parts of King John and found himself face-to-face with the insistence of his grief.

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say That we shall know our friends in heaven: If that be true, I shall see my boy again.

Such deep emotions were evoked by these lines that Lincoln bowed his head and sobbed uncontrollably.

It was Lincoln's habit to go every day to the War Department to read telegrams from his generals in the field and to send them orders and suggestions. Telegrapher Thomas Eckert, knowing that the president wanted to be left alone to work on an important paper, suggested that he use a desk in his office. It was at this desk that Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

On his first day at the desk, he wrote a line or two but spent a lot of time staring into space and thinking. For several minutes at a time, he studied the activities of a family of large spiders in a web above the desk.

As Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, it was impossible for him to separate his feelings from his stated policies. He considered mostly military and political imperatives, but he must surely have been touched, at least to some extent, by his emotions. He had always hated slavery and his hatred had been deepened by the spectacle of slave markets in New Orleans, by the sight of men in chains on a steamboat bound from Louisville to St. Louis, and by his glimpses of the degradation of the people in slave pens in Washington. He must have been aware of the moral force of the paper he was working on.

As Lincoln worked, Eckert noticed that he read and repeatedly reread what he had written, carefully going over every sentence, often putting question marks in the margins. As he worked, precedent hung above him like the shadow of a man bending over a bright fire. Where slavery was concerned, his country had long lagged behind other nations. In Europe and in South America, governments that had once allowed the sale of captured Africans had done away with slavery. Russia was just taking final steps to free its serfs. In French and British colonies, including Canada, slavery had been eliminated by decree. Mexico had outlawed slavery. In the Western Hemisphere, it had lasted only in parts of the United States and in several of its territories and in both Brazil and Cuba.

As Lincoln faced his country's tardiness in eliminating slavery, he looked back on a year of military disappointments. In view of these disappointments, he knew how difficult it would be to retain the loyalty of the remaining border states — Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware — none of which had outlawed slavery. He knew that he must compromise in order to retain that loyalty so he decided he would let those states keep their slaves, at least until he had a chance to outlaw slavery everywhere.

Copyright © 1999 by Peter Burchard

Table of Contents

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 Father Abraham Is Come!

CHAPTER 2 The Root of the Troubles

CHAPTER 3 A Criminal Betrayal

CHAPTER 4 A Universal Feeling

CHAPTER 5 In His Prison House

CHAPTER 6 So Sad a Face

CHAPTER 7 Right Makes Might

CHAPTER 8 The Mystic Chords of Memory

CHAPTER 9 A Time of Times

CHAPTER 10 The World Will Little Note

CHAPTER 11 Get Down, You Fool

CHAPTER 12 After Life's Fitful Fever

AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY AND NOTES ON SOURCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6 Up-Burchard provides readers and researchers with a rich understanding of the preeminence of slavery as a political and moral issue in 19th-century America and of the importance of Lincoln's leadership in abolishing it. The author traces his subject's evolution from a young man with a personal antipathy toward slavery to a president who led the country to a broader understanding of freedom. He places Lincoln's story in historical context showing how he was influenced by the events of the era and how he used his formidable political and oratorical skills to guide public beliefs and policy. The author is admiring of the steps Lincoln took in courageously ending slavery and overcoming his occasional personal bigotry toward blacks. He uses many primary sources, documented in essay form at the end of the text. Black-and-white photographs; reproductions of posters, prints, and engravings; and other material accompany the text. This book complements biographies such as Albert Marrin's Commander in Chief: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War (Dutton, 1997) and primary-source collections such as Lincoln: In His Own Words, edited by Milton Meltzer (Harcourt, 1993). An outstanding choice.-Mary Mueller, Rolla Junior High School, MO Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Focusing on Lincoln's life through the lens of slavery, Burchard begins his narrative with an interestingly atypical premise: that Lincoln's ignorance about African Americans and lack of contact with them for most of his early life led him to make decisions and take actions that would seem contrary to his later image as "Father Abraham," savior of the black people. In fact, Lincoln did not give his first important speech against slavery until he was forty-five years old. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are explored for both their content and their impact on the emerging Republican party and the political process in general. Lincoln's progress toward the Presidency and toward the war occupies the middle section of the book; the final chapters deal with the war and its effect on African Americans and their involvement in various regiments. Full of descriptions of specific incidents, quotations, and anecdotes that add color and detail, the book reads easily, and the index will allow fact-hunters to zero in on topics. The vintage photographs and graphics used to illustrate the work are well labeled, and the book is documented with notes for each chapter and an extensive bibliography.

Horn Book Magazine

A look at Abraham Lincoln's evolving views and actions toward African-Americans and slavery; Burchard avoids a dry, textbook-like presentation, but sometimes jumps from one period to another without effective transitions. Burchard succeeds in his main purpose, painting a complex portrait of Lincoln's character; he emerges as a real human being with some flaws, but also with enormous maturity, wisdom, and compassion. The text is enlivened by anecdotes and details from Lincoln's life and from the lives of other notable figures of the period, such as abolitionists and fellow politicians. Such a clear picture of the times is further aided by black-and-white photographs and drawings from the period. Readers will come away with a strong grasp of the tensions that led to the Civil War, and an understanding of the African-American struggle for freedom; the clarity of Burchard's writing and thinking eclipses any textbook offering on the subject. (index, not seen, notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews