The Abolation Of Abraham Lincoln And The Great Emancipator

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president and one of the most well-known presidents to hold office. He is famous for many things, from his work as a lawyer to his involvement in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Most of all, Lincoln is known for being the “Great Emancipator”, for finally ending slavery centuries after its inception. Based on his work in passing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and his decision to make the Civil War about slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln largely deserves the credit he is given for abolishing slavery; however, he is certainly not solely responsible for abolition, and without the help of others pushing for change, abolition might never have happened.
First, we come to this idea of the passing of the 13th Amendment. By 1865, Lincoln knew that he must free the slaves in the country for a variety of reasons, one being for political purposes. He pushed for this amendment to become law, and in this he demonstrated why Lincoln deserves his title of Great Emancipator. He was willing to resort to any extreme to convince both the moderate Republicans and Democrats of …show more content…
From the beginning, Lincoln never acknowledged the Confederacy as a legitimate country at war with the Union; he treated them as rebelling states instead. At first he also believed that it was more important to end the war rather than abolish slavery, saying in his 1st Inaugural Address "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery where it exists” (Lincoln), but eventually both political pressure and his morals changed his mind. Now some may argue that this disqualifies Lincoln from deserving the title of Great Emancipator if he wasn’t going to abolish slavery right from the beginning. However, even though Lincoln wasn’t always the Great Emancipator, he grew into the role and adopted the ideals surrounding it, “sounding the great death knell of slavery”