Abraham Lincoln Quotes
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.
Lincoln, Abraham. "Speech at Peoria, Illinois." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, Rutgers University Press, 1953, p. 268.
Some whites opposed Slavery and new slave states, not becasue of any sympathy with Negroes or concern for the immorality of slavery, but becasue slavery made it difficult for the working white man to thrive.
Many people are surprised that such an anti-slavery could have passed given the Southern states’ position regarding slavery. However, this resolution did not end slavery—just American participation in the slave trade. This would have actually increased the value of the existing slaves in the colonies as “cheap imports” would no longer depress the value of American slaves. The Southern perception was there were enough slaves for their needs and they could breed more. The other states, generally opposing slavery took what they could get---a ban on the slave trade. A major economic fact of the time was the vast majority of the slave trade imports were going to the British Colonies in the Caribbean. Cutting off the American slave trade would do much more harm to the economic interests of Britain than the United States where the only people economically hurt would be the Yankee captains and slave traders who were not very popular of politically connected except in Rhode Island.
Baldwin was a young lawyer at the time. He represented a shipload of ex-slaves who had taken over their Spanish slave ship and landed in America. The Spanish claimed, the ship owners and some of the crew all claimed the “property.”
The first anti-slavery newspaper published in the United States & the first journal in America to advocate immediate, unconditional emancipation
In this case, the Pope was obeyed on the issue of slavery. However, Papal injunctions against slavery have not always had the desired effect. See {617632}
This quotation illustrates the strong abolitionist tendency in the Ohio Territory. Under this clause, escaped slaves from Southern states would not be returned by the state authorities. Even more insulting to the slave enthusiasts of the South, if a Southerner brought any slaves into Ohio with them as was common for Southerners traveling with their personal slaves or horse team drivers, those slaves would be free. An interesting aspect of this clause of the Ohio Constitution was that the beginning was, word for word, copied from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. See {618100}.
A few years later he had a clearer idea of what was to be done. However, the additional factor of the Civil War played a big part in driving his Emancipation Proclamation. See {609360}
See {625675}, {625684}, {625683}, {625682}, {625676} for additional quotations arguing for Black emigration.
In the early days of the Civil War slaves who escaped and reached the Northern lines were routinely returned to their Southern owners as the Fugitive Slave Act required. The first actual emancipation of the Civil war was not the President’s proclamation but was Butler who as a Union General ordered that the slaves escaping from Virginia no longer be returned. He was accused of violating the then existing law, however he had a legal rationale which hoisted Virginia on its own petard.
It was in fact, the following year when the South rebelled to prevent a “settlement”, but the irony was that the Civil War brought the settlement—emancipation-- faster and on less favorable terms than had they not rebelled and let the political process end slavery gradually as the majority of the nation wanted and morality dictated.
This license was issued for Spain in 1517 shortly after he was crowned. This was the beginning of the Slave Trade where Spain shipped kidnapped Africans as slaves to the West Indies.
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
