Abraham Lincoln Not Freed The Slaves Summary

What if Abraham Lincoln had not freed the slaves? The material that I read had a few ideas of what could have happened. It not only answered that question, but it also told of what led to the freeing of slaves. In this reading, there was so much that surprised me and really changed my initial thinking of Lincoln and made me reflect on the what would have happened if the Emancipation Proclamation was not delivered. In this reading, it says that “slavery would have continued for a time in the old Confederate and border states, though the increasing pressures of world opinion and of an inefficient and wasteful labor system eventually would have brought about its end” (Wicker 6). I agree with this statement because I believe that the only thing that could have ended slavery at that time was the Proclamation. In my opinion, without Lincoln’s push, the war would have just kept going and slavery wouldn’t have
I completely agree with this notion because if slaves weren’t freed in the first place, then how would the idea of the thirteenth, fourteenth, or even fifteenth amendments come into play? Lincoln said himself, that if he could have won the war for the Union without freeing slaves, he would have done it, and if he could win the war by freeing all the slaves, he would have done that too. That being said, if the war was going good for the Union, or even if it wasn’t going good but they could win by not freeing them, then Lincoln could have chose to not free the slaves. To me, it is crazy to think that one small thing could have altered history. That leaves the question of what America could be like