Lincoln and Slavery

beliefs from their political ideology. That is, believing that the government does not necessarily have the right to invade the privacy of a woman by telling her what she can and cannot do with her body while, at the same time, attempting to make abortions as safe and rare as possible at the public level and having an abhorrence of them at a personal one. Lincoln approached slavery in the same way, expressing his personal distaste for the institution but remaining loyal to his duty as President to uphold the Constitutional rights of states to dictate their own affairs.

As Lincoln's term in office progressed, he became more and more open to the ideal of full equality of the Black man, thanks in no small part to the pure agitation that Frederick Douglass provided him. Loewen (1995) points out how Lincoln challenged his own racist tendencies and those of the federal government:

As president, Lincoln understood the importance of symbolic leadership in improving race relations. For the first time the United States exchanged diplomats with Haiti and Liberia. In 1863 Lincoln desegregated the federal government that lasted until Woodrow Wilson. Lincoln opened the White House to Black callers, notably Frederick Douglass. He also continued to wrestle with his own racism, asking aided to investigate the feasibility of deporting (euphemistically termed "colonizing") African Americans to Africa or Latin America (p. 180).

The evolution of Lincoln's thoughts on slavery reached its pinnacle when he delivered his Second Inaugural Address in 1865. During his first months in office and into the first years of the conflict, Lincoln had spoken fervently against this war being one fully against slavery, but rather for the preservation of the Union. After 1863, however, his approach began to change, realizing the war being made inevitable by the presence of slavery. A portion of his Second Inaugural Address:

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe him? ...Fondly do we hope-fervently do we pray-that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that

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