The civil war was fought on both sides by citizen soldiers who volunteered for stays between ninety days and the duration of the war. Many of them reported after their time expired and received bonuses and privileges. In March 1863, the Union passed a conscription law requiring military service, but even then, nearly two-thirds of new soldiers volunteered. Lincoln delegated responsibility for the food, equipment, and transportation of Union troops to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a former Ohio Democrat. Stanton worked closely with the various states, which initially equipped and supplied their highly developed militia units. Until 1863, the War Department acted as an effective and massive government agency, combining with remarkable efficiency the farms that provided food and the industries that supplied the weapons on the battlefield. Lincoln`s death stunned the country and dampened its joy at the end of the Civil War. After seven days of official mourning at the Capitol, Lincoln`s casket was brought back to Springfield, Illinois, in a slow funeral procession. As the procession passed across the country, people gathered in small towns and villages, in large cities, and across the country to watch the procession pass by and pay their last respects to Lincoln. Thousands of Americans remembered the sight of the funeral procession passing as one of the deepest emotional events of their lives. Historian Eric Foner notes that no one knows what Lincoln would have done for Reconstruction had he served his second term, but he adds: In mid-December, Senator John J.

Crittenden of Kentucky, chairman of the Senate Select Committee, proposed a set of six constitutional amendments known as the Crittenden compromise. The compromise would protect slavery in federal territories south of 36°30 latitude and prohibit it in areas north of that latitude, with newly admitted states deciding the status of slavery within their borders. Congress would be prohibited from abolishing slavery in any state (or the District of Columbia) or interfering in the domestic slave trade. Despite pressure from Seward, Lincoln refused to support the compromise. Lincoln was still opposed to the expansion of slavery in the territories and privately asked Republican senators to oppose the compromise, which failed in Congress.[17] [10] With the stroke of a pen, Lincoln promulgated the most revolutionary measure ever taken by an American president. And he had never been more eloquent than in his message to Congress in December 1862, after the rise of the Democrats in congressional elections, in which he combined emancipation with the salvation of the Union: “By giving liberty to the slave, we secure free liberty—honorable also in what we give and what we preserve. We will nobly save the last best hope on earth or we will lose it commonly. By the end of the war, more than 180,000 black soldiers were serving in the Union Army, winning awards on the battlefield. Most of these soldiers were former slaves (150,000) who flocked to Union lines, often bringing their families with them. This flood of former slaves was one of the largest popular movements in American history and also caused a massive refugee crisis.

Lincoln solved the problem by establishing a refugee system that forced most able-bodied women and refugee children to work for pay on abandoned and conquered farms and plantations overseen by the government. Often these refugee farms and plantations were protected by a domestic guard of black soldiers – the husbands, brothers, sons and fathers of former slave laborers. This was especially the case in the Mississippi Valley, from New Orleans to Memphis. The Confederate Congress unanimously adopted the Confederate Constitution, which declared state sovereignty and prohibited the enactment of legislation prohibiting slavery. In recent years, historians such as Harry Jaffa, Herman Belz, John Diggins, Vernon Burton, and Eric Foner have emphasized Lincoln`s redefinition of Republican values. As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln emphasized the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values—what he called the “leaf anchor” of republicanism. [261] The Declaration`s emphasis on freedom and equality for all, as opposed to the Constitution`s tolerance of slavery, postponed debate. As Diggins concludes in reference to Cooper Union`s highly influential speech in the early 1860s, “Lincoln presented Americans with a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself.” [262] His position was strengthened because he emphasized the moral foundation of republicanism rather than its legalisms. [263] Nevertheless, Lincoln justified the war in 1861 with legalisms (the Constitution was a treaty, and for one party to withdraw from a treaty, all other parties had to agree) and then in relation to the national duty to guarantee a republican form of government in each state. [264] Burton (2008) argues that Lincoln`s republicanism was taken up by freedmen when they were emancipated. [265] Unlike Sumner and other radicals, Lincoln did not see reconstruction as an opportunity for large-scale political and social revolution beyond emancipation. He had long opposed the confiscation and redistribution of land.

He believed, as did most Republicans in April 1865, that the terms of the election should be set by the states. He assumed that political control in the South would pass to white unionists, reluctant secessionists, and avant-garde former Confederates. But during the war, Lincoln, after initial opposition, had repeatedly adopted positions initially held by abolitionists and radical Republicans. Lincoln would no doubt have listened carefully to the outcry for increased protection for former slaves. It is entirely plausible to imagine Lincoln and Congress agreeing on a Reconstruction policy that includes federal protection for basic civil rights and limited voting rights for blacks, as Lincoln had proposed shortly before his death. [187] In the run-up to the Union military victory in the spring of 1865, many called for revenge against the South. There was great anticipation as to what Lincoln would say in his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865. Among the 30,000 people who gathered outside the steps of the Capitol to hear Lincoln speak were many black Union soldiers. Early in his political career, Abraham Lincoln declared that he was not an abolitionist and believed that the Constitution of the United States protected slavery where it already existed. But he also believed that the Founding Fathers had paved the way for the definitive eradication of slavery by preventing its spread to new territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed by Congress in 1854, allowed slavery to spread throughout the Western territories by allowing residents of those territories to vote on whether or not slavery was permitted (the idea of popular sovereignty). Lincoln did not agree with this new legislation and began to speak out against the morality of slavery.

With Lincoln`s election as President of the United States in 1860, the South believed that its opposition to the spread of slavery would eventually break the economic backbone of the South. South Carolina officially seceded from the Union on December 24, 1860, citing “frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States and its interference with the reserved rights of states” as the reason for secession. Eventually, ten more States were to follow. A multitude of questions dominated the political debate: did states have a constitutional right to secede? Did the president have the power to interfere in the institution of slavery? And when Confederate forces arrived on September 12. When he fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, what constitutional liberties could the president take to suppress the rebellion? Congress passed a war article prohibiting the military from returning escaped slaves to their masters; Lincoln signed the bill. Lincoln`s first dedication took place on March 4, 1861, in the east portico of the United States Capitol. [31] Before taking the oath of office, Lincoln delivered his inaugural address. He began by trying to assure the South that he had neither the intention nor the constitutional authority to interfere in slavery in states where it already existed. He promised to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and spoke favorably of an upcoming constitutional amendment that would preserve slavery in states where it currently exists.