Lincoln And The Second American Revolution Summary

The American Civil War, a war that had its origin in the issue of slavery, occurred from 1861 to 1865. In his book, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, James M. McPherson considered the civil war as the Second American Revolution because of the changes it brought about in regards to slavery in the Unites States. In this event, revolution can be defined as the overthrowing of a current system of governing for a new and better system, what also happened on the First American Revolution. In the book, McPherson wrote that Charles A. Beard, one of the most influential American historians in the history, argued that the overthrow of slavery was an economic and capitalist revolution because the war happened as the result of a class conflict between a Yankee capitalist and a southern planter aristocracy. The book also discussed Lincoln’s position regarding the civil war in that he was at first conservative about the efforts of war against slavery but then shifted to a radical position. Lincoln’s change of position was caused by the also changing circumstances around the war. Some states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate that was proslavery, which made Lincoln think
about how he should act since four proslavery states, Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, were still in the Union, but were on the edge of seceding if there were any rash actions made against slavery by the government. However, the book discussed that by 1862, the limited war that Lincoln was preserving had changed to a total war as the Lincoln administration imposed blockade on Confederate ports and treated captured Confederate soldiers as prisoners of war. The change to a total war was what caused the shift in Lincoln’s position from conservative to radical. One of the effects of the Civil War is that it changed the relations between liberty and property.
Before the war, liberty was associated with property in that for you to have liberty or independence you must have property to make you nondependent on anyone else. At the time, most the people who own property were mostly whites and blacks were considered dependent on whites since the whites were their masters. After the war, slavery was abolished, and Lincoln denounced the idea that you need property to be liberated, and removed the property qualifications for voting. The racial equality caused by the war constitute a shift from a negative to a positive concept of freedom because before the war, freedom was associated with freedom of the whites, whereas, after, it is freedom for
all. According to the book, Lincoln was an effective war president because even though he was a poor military strategist, he was a great national strategist as he appointed influential people as generals of his army to get the people who supported the people to get on their side. During the war, Lincoln also issued the Emancipation Proclamation because he felt that he needed the African Americans to side with him to strengthen their force. Also, Lincoln was willing to preserve the Union because it will be a legacy that will be passed down to generations.