Lincoln 's Views On Slavery Essay

Lincoln’s political views reflected his desire to follow the ideals of the Constitution. The outbreak of the Civil War forced Lincoln to prioritize the union of the nation because he felt it was his duty unite the nation as laid out in the Constitution. With the need to end the war, further influences such as that of Douglass foster Lincoln’s revised opinion on slavery because he is pressured to pass the Emancipation Proclamation which enables him to visualize the union of nation without slavery.
Although morally and politically deprecating slavery, Lincoln is in favor of the Constitution which he feels dictates the continuity of the Union. Dating back to the Senate race in 1857, there was multiple factors that shaped Lincoln’s thoughts on slavery. Previously in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act challenged the boundaries imposed on slavery with “popular sovereignty”; a means that made expansion of slavery possible . While Lincoln initially thought containing slavery would be the best approach, the Kansas-Nebraska act instigated Lincoln to become more demanding on the subject of slavery because he wanted to avoid expansion at all cost. Likewise, Lincoln finds his ideas strengthened by the Dred Scott case which more than anything exposed Lincoln’s sacred views towards the Constitution. In his “A House divided Speech” in June 16 of 1858, Lincoln reminds the audience of how the Founding Fathers perfectly crafted the Constitution to address everything and omit nothing. Comparing it…