Did Lincoln Free The Slaves Analysis

Did Lincoln Free the Slaves? Most claim that Lincoln was this miraculous hero that freed the slaves through fearless fighting, but is the claim accurate? If you look at history from a rather literal perspective, Lincoln was not out fighting in the war, and made claims, such as the Emancipation Proclamation, in which he could not follow through with. He was not a complete believer in slavery, but he did see the value of it for southern states that relied on it for a source of significant income, he simply did not believe in the spreading of slavery into territories out west, which makes him far from the abolitionist in which some historians paint him as. Vincent Harding, and his belief in which that Lincoln did not free the slaves, that the slaves freed themselves, had a more concrete stance as a thesis, compared to that of James M. McPherson. The first issue in which Harding makes portrays his thesis better is his use of language to convey his message. With his document only being 15 years older that McPherson’s, he uses a larger array of vocabulary in order to prove his point, while McPherson’s document being slightly younger does not have the potency of language of …show more content…
One that has changed our history forever, which without him would have never happened when it did the way it did. Vincent Harding, quite obviously, had more strength and a better sense of structure and purpose throughout his writing, both of which supported his thesis considerably compared to that of James M. McPherson. His acute use of vocabulary and more detailed information backed his thesis even with the lack of invalidating opposing arguments. While McPherson used lacking vocabulary, general information, and his blunder of failing to discredit the plentiful use of opposing arguments within his piece. Vincent Harding had a much more impregnable argument, and that of James M. McPherson was quite flimsy in