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Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator

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This reading made me feel that Abraham Lincoln was a very astute individual. I have always thought of him as the "Great Emancipator", the man who freed the slaves, but after reading this excerpt, I believe that he didn't just write it to free the slaves, but to also weaken the South's war efforts. "Lincoln told members of his Cabinet that he had "about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity, absolutely essential to the salvation of the nation, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued."" (Wicker 7). Lincoln not only wrote the Proclamation for just the slaves, but to keep from "surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution" (Wicker 7). One time in the reading that supports my feeling about Lincoln is: "the

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