Abraham Lincoln: A Legacy of Freedom - US Department of State

effort to snatch victory from certain
defeat by inciting slave rebellions. If
the war concerned slavery, why had
Lincoln declared its purpose was to
preserve the Union?
Indeed, in the following
November, the British cabinet under
Prime Minister Lord Palmerston
considered an interventionist
proposal to recognize the
Confederacy and thus force the
Union to discuss peace. The cabinet
overwhelmingly voted against this,
not least because it did not wish
Britain to be seen on the side of
slaveholders against Lincoln and
emancipation. Together with the
Russians, Britain then rejected
the proposal by French Emperor
Napoleon III for an armistice
demand backed by multilateral force
should either American belligerent
reject the demand (in reality this
was a threat aimed at the North,
since an armistice effectively would
ratify southern independence). By
the close of 1862, the Palmerston
ministry came to realize that
whatever blend of realpolitik and
moral instinct drove Lincoln’s
proclamation, however less than 100
percent pure his motives, the results
would be desirable and just.
A New Birth of Freedom
And so it was. When northern
victory finally came in April 1865,
it was clear that the president had
saved the Union, but not the Union
of 1861. As the postwar amendments
to the U.S. Constitution assured
that Americans would never again
permit slavery in their land, the true
breadth of Lincoln’s vision became
clear. Lincoln had midwived a new
birth of freedom based on the natural
rights underlying the Declaration
of Independence. He had destroyed
slavery and the Old South, and he
emerged with a better Union. And
Lincoln’s role as skillful diplomatist
was an indispensable ingredient in
forestalling European intervention
and prevailing in one of the oftenforgotten
yet crucially decisive battles
of the Civil War.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A LEGACY OF FREEDOM 45