As President, Abraham Lincoln often stated his wishes on ending slavery, but frequently claimed he could not violate the constitution. In a letter to Senator A.G. Hodges, Lincoln said that “It was in the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution”(Doc. H). Lincoln insisted that it was his job to support the constitution but in the end he violated it. In 1862, during the Civil War, Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that declared “all persons held as slaves with said designated states… are and henceforward shall be free.”(Doc. G) Lincoln violated the constitution by ordering confederate states to free their slaves. The confederate states did not have to free their slaves because the Emancipation Proclamation violated the constitution. Lincoln’s order didn’t do anything for the African-Americans held as slaves and just further angered the south. This shows Lincoln was just another politician and not …show more content…
In one speech, Lincoln gave shortly before his presidency, he asked the American people to “discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land,”(Doc. A) He states that the color of people’s skin does not matter and that “all men are created equal.”(Doc. A) Then, in a debate with Stephen A. Douglas, he claims that there is a “physical difference between the white and black races.”(Doc. B) He says “that while they do remain together, there must be a position of superior and inferior…”(Doc. B) and declares that the superior race must fall to the whites. Lincoln makes these statements in order to persuade his audience and win the debate rather than revealing his personal views on slavery and the African-Americans. Lincoln was willing to be extremely racist only to tell people what they wanted to hear. These actions showed he was just another