Activity 2:
Voices of Freedom – The Second Revolution – The Civil War[1]
General Information:
Chapter 13: A House Divided: Voices of Freedom
Historical Context:
Voices of Freedom: From The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858): Comments by Stephen A.
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln
Questions:
1. How do Lincoln and Douglas differ on what rights black Americans are entitled to enjoy?
2. Why does Lincoln believe the nation cannot exist forever half slave and half free, whereas Douglas believes it can?
3. How does each of the speakers balance the right of each state to manage its own affairs against the right of every person to be free?
4. What is “popular sovereignty”? (see pp. 458-459)
Eric Foner – Questioning Freedom: How would you characterize Lincoln's views on
slavery and race at the time he took office as president?
Abraham Lincoln once said, "I think I have hated slavery as much as any abolitionist." Lincoln despised slavery, there's no QUESTION about that, but Lincoln was not an abolitionist. Abolitionists were willing to see the country broken up, the Constitution violated in order to attack slavery. Lincoln had too much reverence for the law, reverence for the Constitution. He was willing to compromise with the South. He said we must respect the constitutional arrangements. He said if the Constitution says they must get their fugitive slaves back, we must do that. Lincoln identified the westward expansion of slavery as the key issue. Abolitionists said, No, abolition is the issue. Lincoln said, No, the issue is whether slavery is allowed to expand to the West. Lincoln's racial views were typical of the time. He did not favor equal rights for the blacks in Illinois, he did not favor black suffrage, and he did not favor black and white intermarriage. On the other hand, he always said, blacks may not be equal of rights but they are entitled to the unalienable rights identified by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty (which is why slavery was wrong), and the pursuit of happiness. They have to have the right to compete in the marketplace, enjoy the fruits of their labor just like anyone else. So Lincoln was a creature of his time; he shared many of its prejudices, but what's interesting about Lincoln is, he wasn't an abolitionist. His views on slavery and race were such that it was his election that led the South to fear that slavery was in danger and leave the Union.
Chapter 14: A New Birth of Freedom: The Civil War
Historical Context:
·
The Second American Revolution (pp.
498 – 501)
·
The Confederate Nation (pp. 507 – 509)
·
Eric Foner – Questioning Freedom
(Chapter 14)
Voices of Freedom:
Two Definitions of Liberty
1. Alexander H. Stephens – Vice President of the Confederacy
2.
Abraham Lincoln – President of the United
States
Questions:
1. Why does Stephen argue that slavery in the South differs from slavery as it has existed in previous societies?
2. What does Lincoln identify as the essential difference between northern and southern definitions of freedom?
3. How do Lincoln and Stephens differ in their definition of liberty and whether it applies to African Americans?
Eric Foner: Questioning Freedom: How is it
that during the Civil War both sides were fighting for what they thought of as
freedom?
Well, the idea of freedom was so engrained in American life, in
American culture, that everybody, in a sense, tried to appeal to it. And in the
Civil War northerners insisted they were fighting for liberty. As Lincoln said
from the very beginning of the war, the Union was the last best hope of
mankind. It was a symbol of liberty. Now Lincoln meant Americans' political liberty.
Self-government, democracy—the Union was a symbol of that for the world. If the
Union were broken up it would be a blow to freedom throughout the world.
Southerners insisted they were fighting for freedom, self-determination, the same right that led the American revolutionists to sever
their ties with Britain and create their own independent nation. The white
southerners said, We have the same rights. If the
colonies could secede from Britain, why can't we secede and create our own
independent nation? Government rests on the consent of the governed; that is
the essence of liberty. So both sides insisted they were fighting for liberty,
but then, of course, as the war goes on (not at the beginning) it became a
crusade against slavery. And so the antislavery impulses were
added by the middle of the war, and the war became (as Lincoln would put it) a
new birth of freedom for the nation because of the emancipation of the slaves.