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Slavery And Its Impact On American History

Decent Essays

Slavery is seen as a blemish on American history, and the man who abolished it can be an idol to many. He is considered honest, and his image can be found on the penny and on the five-dollar. However, history is written by the victors, and Abraham Lincoln had no intention of getting rid of the institution of slavery. In a debate with Stephan A. Douglas, Lincoln said, “My first impulse would be to free all slaves, and send them to Liberia,-to their own native land.” Later on during that same debate, he said, “I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists (Abraham Lincoln 1858).” Lincoln did not intend to abolish slavery nor was he committed to the idea, and he only changed his mind when his teleological ethics dictated him to.
Before Lincoln took office, several states from the south created the Confederacy on February of 1861, and later on, four more states left to join them as well. They believed that the federal government was a servant of the states, and whatever rights the federal level did not have, it belonged to the states. This was because of how the Constitution failed to mention anything about slavery, and as a result, the dissenters believed that the states had the power to decide whether or not to allow it. Congress delayed the separation by enacting acts that would comprise with the pro-slave and anti-slave parties, but they could not stop the movement entirely (Dwight Lowell Dumond 1963).

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