In his progressive speeches and actions, Lincoln's thoughts on slavery are seen to change as time goes by. During the civil war, Lincoln regarded slavery to be unjust and never doubted the sincerity and accuracy of this statement. While making his speech in Peoria, he admitted that slavery is wrong and started contemplating freeing all the slaves and sending them to Liberia, their homeland. Furthermore, he advocated for slavery to be abolished. At this point, Lincoln doesn't view black people as an intrinsic part of the American society but sees them as an alien group which has been uprooted from their society and brought unjustly across the ocean. He, therefore, wants them to be sent back to Africa.
Initially, Lincoln supported this form of colonization, where he advocated for slaves to be freed and required to exit the United States for decades. He was also for the idea of repealing slavery gradually and if possible, oversee the compensation of slave owners for the loss of their slaves. With time, all these previous ideas by Lincoln were repudiated by the Emancipation Proclamation. All over sudden there is no focus on compensating slave owners. This was a strategy he had to stop the spread of slavery in the western lands citing that it could block “free labor on free lands”. His main concern was to do away with slavery in areas which experienced rebellion, but the slave owners were hesitant of complying with his directives. After this, Lincoln mentions nothing on colonization. This sudden change was contributed to by several factors such as lack of support from both slaves and slave owners.
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After the thirteenth amendment of 1865, slavery came to its ultimate end awarding newfound freedom to African Americans after he used the army force in the liberation of the slaves, which gave rise to a new era, the era of reconstruction where the freed slaves focused on starting new lives with liberty granted to them. During this period, the freed slaves worked for the government and were paid according to the work they did. Most of the slaves resorted to hands own activities such as farming, growing the agricultural sector of the country. However, some of them who were unlucky ended up living in desperate rural poverty across the south following the civil war. This did not only affect the areas marred by rebellion but also in the western after the declaration of freedom for all slaves regardless of the region they were in.
Freed slaves became the centerpieces of family church and school. Black women opted to be homemakers with their men being pushed to the workforce as casual laborers in the industrial world. For the desire of spiritual renewal, some ended up forming black churches, not only as centers of places of worship but also centers of learning, socializing and political organization.
Also, their desire for education led to the establishment of schools at every level up to college and university levels. This desire also led to the establishment of government agencies aimed at aiding former slaves. Such programs oversaw the construction of over three thousand schools in the south during the period of reconstruction. The African Americans actively took up the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of citizenship. During this period of reconstruction, they served in elected public offices.
In conclusion, Lincoln initially gave much attention to the prevailing issue of slavery which faded as time passed. His efforts in advocating for the freedom of the slaves is reflected in most of his speeches, and he successfully in ensuring that slavery ended during his rule though the initiative was highly criticized by the slave owners and faced a lot of resistance. In the initial stages of the struggle, he seemed to support the colonization whereby slave owners would be compensated for gradually freeing their slaves but this idea changed as time passed and he was forced to use army force to implement the constitutional amendments with abolishes slavery.
Work Cited
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=40
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp
