Lincoln agonized for months over the explosive issue of slavery. It was, 150 years ago, what we today would call “The Third Rail,” but this third rail concerned slavery, the mother of all ethical connumdrums in American history. Specifically, should he issue something like an emancipation proclamation?
The whole idea was repugnant to him since it would, in effect, represent the siezure of private property, and as a lawyer that ran counter to every constitutional bone in his body. And yet, as he often said, he was not going to leave any card unplayed in reestablishing the Union, and slavery was THE card yet unplayed.
So he decided the issue. On his own.
We, of course, might find that difficult to fathom, but having thought through all sides of the issue, having consulted with this one and that one, having heard all the arguments for and against, having been tugged this way and that way by competing forces, the decision was, seemingly, a relatively painless one to make.
In fact, on the day the emancipation proclamation first saw the light of day he told his cabinet, his utterly astounded cabinet, that he himself had already the issue itself but that he wanted their input on the incidentals surrounding the decision.
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