Lincoln's Attitude Towards War

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." This was the closing to President Lincoln's first inaugural address. He was telling the people of the United States that they will be together forever, and he will respect the country. However, once the war started and as it went on, his thinking change. Lincoln's attitude towards the war and his mindset about the end goal of the war changed as the war went on.
At the beginning of the war, Lincoln said that he would not do anything about slavery because he legally could not. In the first inaugural, he says, "I have no purpose directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." This was Lincoln's attitude before the Civil War even began. Lincoln told the people of the United States that he would not do anything about slavery at the beginning of the war. At the beginning of the war, he made it very clear that his main focus was to preserve the union and his only focus was to preserve the union. In his letter to Horace Greely, Lincoln states, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slave I would do it." At the beginning of his presidency and at the beginning of the war, Lincoln was adamant about the fact that he was not going to do anything about slavery and his one and only goal was to save the Union.
Lincoln's focus shifted from saving the union to ending slavery towards the end of the war. In 1863, Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation. He stated, " I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are and henceforward shall be free..." (Emancipation Proclamation, 1863). This is when Lincoln's focus shift really presented itself. The Emancipation Proclamation was the first proclamation that showed that Lincoln was now thinking more about slavery than he was thinking about saving the union. In Document B, Frederick Douglass is talking about meeting with Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, he states, "What he said on this day showed a deeper moral conviction against slavery than I had ever seen before in anything spoken or written by him." Douglass is basically explaining how Lincoln's focus shifted from saving the union to ending slavery. Douglass was a close companion of Lincoln's throughout the war, and so the fact that Douglass says that he hadn't seen this opinion of Lincoln's prior to the Emancipation Proclamation shows that Lincoln's mindset changed tremendously when thinking about the end goal of the war.
Throughout the war, Lincoln's attitude about the war changed as well.
In the beginning, Lincoln seemed to still think that the South was a part of the United States. But, although they were legally, they were not physically a part of the United States anymore. Because of this belief, Lincoln treated the South more kindly, giving them more opportunities. He didn't blame them for the start of the war because he didn’t want to cause more conflict. "A practical reacknowledgment of the national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at once cease." (Message to Congress Recommending Compensated Emancipation, 1862). This statement shows that Lincoln still thought that he had power over the South, and he didn't think the South really wanted to leave. So, he thought that offering them money to emancipate the slaves would lead them back to the United States. He was still giving the South a chance. However, towards the end of the war, Lincoln stated clearly that he believed that the war was the South's fault and that the South caused themselves the pain that they had to endure throughout the war. In his second inaugural address Lincoln says, "While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the
nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let the nation perish, and the war came." In this statement, Lincoln is brutally honest about how he believes the South is to blame for the war. He calls the South "insurgent agents" who "would make war rather than let the nation survive." He is very open to the people listening to his speech that he knows and thinks that the war was the South's fault. This is a completely different attitude compared to the one he had at the beginning of the war.
Overall, Lincoln's mindset and attitude towards the war changed throughout the course of the war.
At the beginning of the war, he was focused on saving the Union, but towards the end of the war, his focus had shifted to slavery. He also had an attitude change that eventually led him to be more honest and forceful with the South than he had been at the beginning of the war. He was more honest in the way in which he told them how he felt about the war and what, in his opinion, they had caused towards the end of the
war.