Sidney M. Milkis on Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln had long believed that slavery was incompatible with the Union and that the nation was threaded together by a set of principles that required equality before the law.”

“Lincoln was too respectful of procedural regularity and formal legality to completely abolish slavery by executive fiat. Instead, he worked to achieve abolition by constitutional amendment. In 1864, Lincoln took the lead in persuading the Republican national convention to adopt a platform calling for an amendment prohibiting slavery everywhere in the United States. Because slavery was 'hostile to the principles of republican government, justice, and national safety', the platform declared, the Republican Party vowed to accomplish its 'utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic'. Full emancipation became an end as well as a means of Union victory.”