Lincoln and the War's Purpose
The purpose changed during the war
- Lincoln and most Union supporters began the Civil War to preserve the Union, but Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation reframed the purpose of the war and helped prevent the Confederacy from gaining full diplomatic support from European powers.
- Reframed is exact: the aim changed mid-war, which is unusual and is the heart of this subtopic.
- And the CED gives a diplomatic consequence alongside the moral one — it helped prevent European support.
Lincoln and most Union supporters began the war to...
The Proclamation reframed the purpose mid-war.
African Americans acted on it
- Many African Americans fled southern plantations and enlisted in the Union Army, helping to undermine the Confederacy.
- Two actions — fled and enlisted — and one military consequence, stated by the CED as helping to undermine.
- So emancipation was not only a proclamation; it was a change in who was fighting, which changed the war's outcome.
The Proclamation's diplomatic effect was that it...
The CED gives a diplomatic consequence alongside the moral one.
Speech as an instrument of reunification
- Lincoln sought to reunify the country and used speeches such as the Gettysburg Address to portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfilment of America's founding democratic ideals.
- Portray... as the fulfilment of America's founding democratic ideals ties the war directly to 3.4's Declaration.
- So the argument is one of continuity: the war completes the founding rather than replacing it.
The reframing, African American action, or the rhetorical strategy?
Sort each element of Lincoln's wartime leadership.
Select both actions the CED attributes to many African Americans.
Helping to undermine the Confederacy.
The rhetorical choice and the political aim are the same decision. A war fought to destroy the existing order cannot end in reunification with its defenders; a war portrayed as the fulfilment of America's founding democratic ideals can — which is why Lincoln sought to reunify in the same sentence.
The Gettysburg Address portrayed the struggle against slavery as...
An argument of continuity, tying the war to 3.4.
Why that framing was politically necessary
- A war fought to destroy the existing order cannot end in reunification with the people who defended it.
- A war fought to fulfil the founding can, because both sides are then claimed to belong to the same tradition.
- So the rhetorical choice and the political aim — reunify — are the same decision.
The rhetorical choice and the aim of reunification are the same decision.
Both sides are then claimed to belong to the same tradition.
Impact on American ideals
- The objective is how Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War impacted American ideals over the course of the war.
- Over the course of licenses a before-and-after: preserving the Union at the start, fulfilling the founding ideals by the end.
- Name the change, the instrument (proclamation and speech), and the consequence (diplomatic, military, and rhetorical).
Tell the losing side it has been defeated by a foreign principle and you have created an occupation. Tell it the principle was already written in its own founding document and you have created, at least on paper, a reunion.
Lincoln and most Union supporters began the Civil War to preserve the Union, but Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation reframed the purpose of the war and helped prevent the Confederacy from gaining full diplomatic support from European powers. Many African Americans fled southern plantations and enlisted in the Union Army, helping to undermine the Confederacy. Lincoln sought to reunify the country and used speeches such as the Gettysburg Address to portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfilment of America's founding democratic ideals.