"lincoln and the 13th Amendment" Topic

Did Lincoln prolong the war 3 additional months and cause unnecessary casualties just to pass the 13th Amendment and free the slaves?

Your thoughts…

No. He freed the slaves and the Rebs caused unnecessary casualties. :)

Caused unnecessary casualties on themselves! ;)

Lincoln needed the newly freed slaves to join the Union armies "Coloured" regiments to help win the war, not prolong it.

And only the slaves in the confederacy were freed. Slave owners in the north and the border states were allowed to keep their slaves.

The amendment was passed by the Senate in April of 1864. It took the House of Representatives until January of 1865 to pas it. Various States were still in the process of retifying the amendment when Lincoln was assasinated. Fail to see how Lincoln could be accused of prolonging the war of it.
The Amendment ends slavery in all of the the United States. The earlier Emancipation Proclamation after Antietam in 1863 initally only applied to slaves in southern states.

Lincoln didn't prolong the war; the Confederacy did. The South was effectively beaten after Gettysburg, and the Wilderness campaign was the proof of it. The South's only hope was to gain the support of Europe, and especially Great Britain. The South fought on partly in hopes of this event. But after Gettysburg, such an alliance (or simply material assistance) was effectively impossible, especially with the added baggage of slavery behind the Southern cause. Anyone willing to look at the situation with political and military objectivity would have known the outcome was inevitable. But pride and blind devotion to a way of life that was already a myth kept the South fighting.

Looking at it the other way, would the south have given up sooner without it?

For me, the answer is no. They needed to be defeated.

Vince

Parzival has a good point.

However, after Gettysburg what could the South have done? In almost all cases once a civil war starts, they usually go until one side is totally defeated.

The only exceptions that I know of are when peace was imposed by an outside entity.

I don't understand. Given that slavery was the root cause of the war, what would be the point of ending it with slavery in place? Indeed, that was Lincoln's entire point
by late 1864.

By refusing to meet with the peace delegation outside of Wilmington in January of 1865, did he prolong the war? The day of the vote in the house, wasn't it delayed when news of a peace delegation was rumored to be approaching Washington? Afterall, the North was war weary…

'States were still in the process of retifying the amendment when Lincoln was assasinated.'

Some States took a little longer than others …

link

Alright, let's try this from another approach. If Lincoln signed a peace accord in Jan 1865, would the 13th Ammendment have been even voted on? Especially with it's biggest proponent dead by an assasin in April?

The movie "lincoln" makes a strong case that he did prolong the war.

The War was caused by the South's fears of the end of slavery. By 1864 there were two motivating forces on the Union side-preservation of the Union, and the end of slavery. To end the war without both being achieved would have seemed like a hollow victory to many in the North, and especially to Lincoln. This is particularly true when over 250,000 black men served in the Union forces to achieve that goal.

To achieve your primary war goals is not prolonging a war. To have ended the war without slavery being finally ended would have been the most immoral act. Lincoln knew this. You also underestimate the strength and the political clout of the "Black" Republicans in the rump congress.

Given the actual outcome of Jim Crow actions in the South that effectively flouted the laws of the United States for over 100 years, one can only imagine what the history would have been if slavery had not been ended!

It is true that Lincoln's political and moral suasion was very important to the 13th amendment, but there is no question that the South had to be defeated and slavery ended. His actions probably saved many more lives in the long run than accepting an early and incomplete victory.

Well put. A very good case set forth about achieving the goals of the war. I am afraid my knowledge of politics toward the end of the war is weak, and that is why I posed the question. Further, Hollywood always takes liberties with the truth. In the movie Lincoln, if one knows nothing of the history of the war, Lincoln will not consider peace until the Amendment is passed, thus sealing the fate of soldiers lost in the following months. I was curious as to how accurate that really was…

My compliments to all.

An intelligent conversation with no baiting or finger pointing, just good old fashioned honest question asking and solid answers in reply.

Haven't seen this on TMP for a while now, hope this continues.

So do I. I have been checking for stifles! Lol