Just want to jump in to point out the precarious plurality Lincoln was banking on. 1860 was a damn mess. Douglas was establishment and very strong, and even though Lincoln made him eat his "Popular Sovereignty" misfortune for breakfast, it was still not clear that the Republicans would pull enough Northern Democrats to prevent the election from going to the lawmakers, which could have been a major problem.
The coalition of Lincoln had a lot of anti-slavery in it, like the Germans and the literal Abolitionists. The Whigs had a strong conscience against slavery- though their actual political history was in support of compromise to solve it, backing the approach of Henry Clay- they were shifting toward a position just flatly against it. The Free Soilers were also a party of conscience, but believed that containment (rather than just compromise) would choke out slavery. The whole coalition supporting the Republicans was anti-slavery, and had different ideas as to how to get it done.
Combine the lack of a coherent party plan for the best way to end slavery with facing massive electoral pressure in the North, and there simply was no way to become an outright abolitionist party at the time. It was politically impossible. That's a really thin place to make a moral judgment, considering that a war of secession was going to be the automatic response to abolition. It's easy to say that the North may as well have just taken the path to war, but Lincoln wanted to hold the country together if he could. Most of the problem with the politics was the result of weak, negligent piece of shit presidents preceding him.
I agree that Lincoln was morally against slavery, but he didn't care enough about it to wage war over it. His concern was keeping the Union together, even if it meant shitting all over the Constitution to do it.
Also, in the 1864 election, Democrats charged the Republicans with favoring blacks. The Republicans needed to separate themselves from this idea, so they took steps at deflecting. They abandoned the "Republican" label and ran under the "National Union Party", which was a transparent attempt to make loyalty to the Union, rather than showing support for Emancipation. Next, they removed the current vice-president, from the ballot. Hannibal Hamlin was considered a radical and even supposedly a mulatto. They replaced him with Andrew Johnson, a Southern Unionist, who was known to hate slaveholders and slaves alike. Johnson would later would later proclaim in the 1867 State of the Union address that blacks possessed “less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism."
In the presidential election of 1864, Lincoln received 2,216,067 votes, while McClellan received 1,808,725 votes; the latter receiving very nearly as many votes in the Northern States alone as Lincoln had received in the whole country when he was elected in 1860, his vote at that time being only 1,866,352. These votes included soldiers in the Union, who one would expect to vote in favor of the cause in which they were fighting.
So, if the people in the North were overwhelmingly supportive of Lincoln’s cause, it didn’t translate according to their voting. Nearly one-half of the voters in the North voted against Lincoln.
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Quotes by Abraham Lincoln on race and slavery:
“I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address,
March 4,
1861
“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” - Abraham Lincoln, First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois,
August 21,
1858
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.” - Abraham Lincoln's response to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune’s, editorial to Lincoln called "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," making demands and implying that Lincoln's administration lacked direction and resolve.
In his 1858 4th debate with Sen. Steven Douglas, Lincoln maintained,
“And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
while debating Douglas in 1858, Lincoln declared the following:
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” - The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 4th Debate Part I
“I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.” - Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas 1897. Page 252
When addressing the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, Lincoln quoted the following:
“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas…” - Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois,
June 26,
1857
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]---that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife.”
—Lincoln's Fourth Debate with Douglas at Charleston, Illinois,
September 18,
1858
“I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union.”
- Taken from Lincoln’s Letter to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863.
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From "The Life of Billy Yank" by Bell Irvin Wiley”, here are a couple of snippets from his book:
"Some fought to free slaves, but a polling of the rank and file through their letters and diaries indicated that those whose primary object was the liberation of slaves comprised only a small part of the fighting forces. It seems doubtful that one soldier in ten at any time during the conflict had any real interest in emancipation per se. A considerable number originally indifferent or favorable to slavery eventually accepted emancipation as a necessary war measure, but in most cases their support appeared lukewarm. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation zealous advocates of African American freedom were exceptional" (p.40)
"In marked contrast to those whose primary interest was in freeing the slaves stood a larger group who wanted no part in a war of emancipation. A soldier newspaper published at Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1862, which carried on its masthead the motto, "The Union Forever and Freedom to all", stated in its first issue: In construing this part of our outside heading let it be distinctly understood that 'white folks' are meant. We do not wish it even insinuated that we have any sympathy with abolitionism".
"Some Yanks opposed making slavery an issue of the war because they thought the effect would be to prolong the conflict at an unjustifiable cost in money and lives. Others objected on the score of the slaves ignorance and irresponsibility, while stills others shrank from the thought of hordes of freedmen settling in the North to compete with white laborers and to mix with them on terms of equality. The opposition of many seemed to have no other basis than an unreasoning hatred of people with black skins". (Pg. 42)
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In 1830, William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent American abolitionist, was not safe in Boston either. An angry mob came to an anti-slavery lecture and proceed to lynch him. He was dragged through the streets, his clothes being torn off. He was finally rescued by the Boston Police who took him to jail. The crowd followed and demanded he be turned over to them. The police were finally able to sneak Garrison out of town.
Riots followed him and his fellow abolitionists everywhere: New York, Philadelphia, Utica, Albany, and Providence, Rhode Island.
After his release from jail in 1830, Garrison returned to Boston where he joined the American Colonization Society, an organization that promoted the idea that free blacks should emigrate to Africa. When it became clear that most members of the group did not support freeing slaves, but just wanted to reduce the number of free blacks in the United States, Garrison withdrew from membership.
Garrison faced stubborn opposition throughout the North. Influential Unitarians thought slavery was no concern of Northerners. Presbyterians refused to preach against slavery. A majority of Baptist ministers refused. In 1836, the General Conference of the Methodist Church ordered members not to participate in anti-slavery agitation. Bills to restrict abolitionist literature were introduced in the legislatures of Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Free blacks were banned in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Oregon. A Marblehead, Massachusetts mob wrecked the printing press and home of publisher Amos Dresser who had previously suffered a public lashing for abolitionist agitation in Nashville. In New Canaan, New Hampshire, local people used oxen to drag a school into a nearby swamp, because the teacher was educating black children. A pro-slavery mob burned down Pennsylvania Hall, an abolitionist gathering place on Philadelphia’s Sixth Street between Race and Arch Streets, and then the mob torched an orphanage for black children.
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The Liberty Party was a minor
political party in the
United States in the 1840s (with some offshoots surviving into the 1860s). The party was an early advocate of the
abolitionist cause and it broke away from the
American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) to advocate the view that the
Constitution was an
anti-slavery document.
William Lloyd Garrison, leader of the AASS, held the contrary view that the Constitution should be condemned as an evil pro-slavery document. The party included abolitionists who were willing to work within electoral politics to try to influence people to support their goals. By contrast, the radical Garrison opposed voting and working within the system. Many Liberty Party members joined the anti-slavery (but not abolitionist)
Free Soil Party in 1848 and eventually helped establish the
Republican Party in the 1850s.
The Liberty Party nominated
James G. Birney, a Kentuckian and former slaveholder, for President in 1840 and 1844. The second nominating convention was held in August 1843 in Buffalo, New York. The Liberty Party platform of 1843 resolved "to regard and to treat" the
fugitive slave clause of the Constitution "as utterly null and void, and consequently forming no part of the Constitution of the United States" on grounds of "natural right" (
natural law). It also contained the following plank:
The Liberty Party...will demand the absolute and unqualified divorce of the general [i.e., federal] government from slavery, and also the restoration of equality of rights among men, in every State where the party exists, or may exist.
The party did not attract much support. In the 1840 election, Birney received only 6,797 votes and in the 1844 election 62,103 votes (2.3% of the popular vote).
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These are just a few examples of attitudes in the North at that time.
