The Emancipation Proclamation: Abraham Lincoln – A New Cause for the American Civil War

The institution of slavery had cast a shadow over American politics and society since the nation's founding, creating contradictions between the ideals of freedom and equality proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and the reality of human bondage that persisted in half the country. By 1860, approximately four million enslaved African Americans labored in the Southern states, their unpaid work generating enormous wealth that underpinned the region's economy while creating social and political structures that depended on the systematic denial of human rights. The expansion of slavery into new territories had become the defining political issue of the 1850s, contributing to the breakdown of national political parties and the rise of sectional tensions that would ultimately lead to civil war.

Lincoln's personal evolution on the slavery question reflected both his moral convictions and his political pragmatism as he sought to find constitutional means for addressing what he privately considered a moral evil. As a young politician in Illinois, Lincoln had expressed his belief that slavery was wrong while acknowledging the constitutional protections that existed for the institution in states where it was already established. His famous debates with Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Senate campaign had articulated a position that opposed slavery's expansion while respecting existing constitutional arrangements, a stance that satisfied neither radical abolitionists nor pro-slavery advocates but appealed to many moderate voters who sought a middle ground.