ABSTRACT
Abraham Lincoln had always opposed slavery on both moral and practical economic grounds, but did not formally endorse its immediate abolition until 1862. Up to that time, he favored the policy of gradual extinction that he believed the Founders of the country had favored. When he realized that the Civil War was going to be a long, drawn-out war of attrition, he concluded that the support of the Northern abolitionists for the war and the Republican Party was far more important than hopeless attempts to appeal to slave owners and Southern sympathizers who had never supported the administration in any case. In addition, poor whites in Appalachia, and in the areas of the Upper South and Border States where there were few slaves, were not particularly enthusiastic for the Confederate cause. West Virginia seceded from the rest of the state in 1861 and sided with the North, while in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee the majority of the white population was neutral or hostile to the Confederacy. All of these groups could be united in a national antislavery coalition that would win the war for the Union, although they did not all agree on equal citizenship and voting rights for blacks. That was a problem that Lincoln had only just begun to face at the time of his assassination in April 1865.
In a long war, all of the economic, financial and population advantages would favor the North since the South was a mostly agrarian region that imported its manufactured goods. Initially, both sides had expected that the war would be short and decisive, although by 1862 it was clear that it might drag on indefinitely. Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and the other Southern leaders realized that their best chance would be to win a series of rapid military victories early in the war then appeal to Britain, France and other European nations for diplomatic recognition. They did not wish to conquer the North nor did they ever imagine that they had the capacity to do so. Their only goal was to gain independence and force the other side to end the war, but the longer it lasted, the more the Union’s advantages in population, money, ideology and resources would grind the Confederacy down. They came very close to achieving this is 1861-62, when one Northern general after another was defeated in Virginia in vain attempts to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. In retrospect, though, this was as close as they would ever come to victory.
One of the most important factors that almost guaranteed victory for the North in any long, drawn out war of attrition was its economic strength. In 1860 it had 80% of the industry, 60% of the population and 75% of the wealth and these were disadvantages the South could not overcome. So were over two-thirds of the railroads, along with the industries, mechanics and machine shops that serviced this industry. Except for the Tredegar Works in Richmond, the South simply lacked the capacity to manufacture and repair locomotives, steel rails, artillery and rifles. Most of its manufactured goods had to be imported, and the South was counting on its exports of cotton to finance the war effort and gain diplomatic leverage for its cause (Brinkley 2012). Gradually the North’s superiority in numbers, weapons, industry and ships wore the South down and prevented it from exporting its cotton or importing weapons and other manufactured goods.
Lincoln also had a free labor ideology was based on equal economic opportunities, at least for all whites, and the idea that even a poor man could eventually accumulate enough capital to buy land or start a small business. In the end, free labor and free soil policies that promised equal rights and opportunities for all had superior appeal to the pro-slavery ideology of the South. Lincoln was familiar with writers like George Fitzhugh and James Henry Hammond, who argued that slavery was a positive good and that every society required a lower caste to do all the menial labor—a ‘mudsill class’ as Hammond called it. His answer was that if slavery was a positive good, it was the only good that no one ever wanted for themselves, and that just as he had never wanted to be a slave neither did he wish to be a master (Foner 1995). Lincoln’s ability to explain and articulate this ideology in speeches like the Gettysburg Address was far superior to that of Jefferson Davis or any of the Confederate leaders, and proved to be a great advantage to the Union. His was able to put forward a moral and political idea that was superior to that of the Confederacy, and this was also as important in winning the war as material factors.
REFERENCES
Brinkley, A. (2012). American History: A Survey, 14th Edition. McGraw-Hill, Chapters 13 and 14.
Foner, E. (1995). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. Oxford University Press.
