Big Idea

Abraham Lincoln’s efforts during the Civil War were focused on restoring the Union. In 1863, he announced the Emancipation Proclamation as a political tool to weaken the South, even while a year before, he had gathered a group of Black leaders to suggest the best path forward for Black Americans was colonization in another land.

What’s important to know?

1. Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln, while agreeing in principle with abolitionist sentiments about enslavement, did not view Black people as equal to White and did not pursue the Civil War to liberate the enslaved. His purpose in the war was to restore the Union.

2. The Emancipation Proclamation: The Emancipation Proclamation was a political tool issued in 1863 and intended to weaken the South by freeing enslaved people within rebel states and allowing them to enlist in the Union Army.

3. Colonization: Abraham Lincoln supported what would have been a massive federal program aimed at removing free Black people from the United States and colonizing them in current day Panama. This effort never moved forward but revealed his motives behind the Civil War and his attitude toward Black Americans.

1: Abraham Lincoln

While President Lincoln has often been celebrated as the “liberator of slaves,” the history around his decisions during and after the war paint a much more nuanced and troubled picture.

While he never personally owned slaves, Lincoln did not initially run on an abolitionist ticket nor ever fully embrace or keep abolitionists close to him in his Cabinet. As Nikole Hannah-Jones (2021) wrote, “Like many white Americans, he opposed slavery as a cruel system at odds with American ideals, but he also opposed Black equality” (p. 22).

A few years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln had said of his feelings about Black Americans, “Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? … My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not” (p. 22).

2: The Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was a document written by Lincoln as a political tool of war. As the Union faced challenges recruiting more soldiers, his war cabinet felt that something needed to be done to weaken the Southern economy. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves within the Confederacy. “[A]ll persons held as slaves… are, and henceforward shall be free” (National Archives). The very important caveat was that this applied only to enslaved persons within the “rebellious states” and would take place in 100 days. All enslaved persons currently in border states (loyal to the Union but states that supported the enslavement of humans) remained in bondage indefinitely.

The other provision—hard fought for by abolitionist in Washington D.C. and beyond—was that the proclamation allowed Black Americans to be armed and fight for the Union. Freed Black men could not be “received into armed service of all United States to garrison forts… [and] to man vessels of all sorts” (Bouie, 2024, p. 231).

This was a very carefully crated political move meant to destabilize the South, increase the fighting force available to the North, all while keeping the border states loyal to the Union.

3: Colonization

In the summer of 1862, President Lincoln welcomed five local Black leaders to the White House for a meeting. While the anticipation of the leaders may have been high, upon hearing Lincoln’s message, any dreams they may have been crafting in their minds disappeared. Lincoln put before them an offer, relocate to a new country in South America (one that apparently had lovely weather and even, amazing monkey meat as a culinary delicacy). He framed his offer in the following way: “Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people… See our present condition—the country engaged in war!—our white men cutting one another’s throats. . . .But for your race among us, there could not be war” (Biddle and Dubin, 2013, p. 57, emphasis added).

Eight days before this meeting, Lincoln had created a new position “Commissioner of Emigration” and installed James Mitchell to serve in this role. One of his first tasks was to research the details of how emigrating a large group of Black Americans would work. He had completed his homework and found a parcel of land in modern day Panama that apparently seemed to be — in the White leaders minds — a perfect fit (p. 23). So excited were Lincoln and his Cabinet about this idea, that apparently Congress had also appropriated funds to be used for this very purpose — a sum of $600,000. President Lincoln concluded his pitch “it is better for us both, therefore, to be separated” (p. 24).

The Black leaders in the room asked for time to consider his proposal. Upon leaving and the spreading word of his offer, Black Americans responded in full force. Frederick Douglass representing the views of many wrote of Lincoln’s proposal it is “a safety valve…for white racism…[and that the meeting] expresses merely a desire to get rid of [Black Americans]” (p. 24).

When Lincoln first circulated a draft of the emancipation proclamation in the fall of 1862, it included a call for colonization. And then again when he addressed Congress in December he made the same call - this time arguing for a constitutional amendment intended to facilitate Black colonization (p. 24).

Listen

Listen to this podcast from Seizing Freedom which describes how Black people “shifted the tide of the [Civil] war and opened new avenues for Black people to seize their freedom.”

Your Turn

What do you think of how Abraham Lincoln is usually portrayed? How do you think the story of his actions and the freedom of Black Americans should be told?