Why Did Abraham Lincoln Join The Union?

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, citizens in the Northern and Southern states faced a decision. Will you join the Union, whose goal is to unify the country, or the Confederacy, which seeks to establish its nation apart from the United States? With everything that comes with selecting either side for the ever-changing future, I have chosen to give my life to the Union's cause. The war was near and after the election, it was closer than what we may have deemed it to be. South Carolina's secession in December 1860 gained momentum in the other southern states. It was not until February 1 that Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas parted from the Union as well. Lincoln, a candidate with a platform
We needed our slaves; they provided cheap and controllable labor and brought in large profits. I have two families of slaves myself, and without them, our farm would suffer. This did not change the significant fact that the slaves now had hope. Lincoln's moral opposition to slavery was well known. In 1858, he debates Senator Stephen A. Douglas during the Illinois Senate race, he states, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free." Now that he was president, enslaved people and abolitionists alike yearned for potential freedom. If the Union triumphed, slavery could be abolished—at least that is what we believe. Slavery has brought benefits and profit to our farms and our lives, but that does not eliminate the moral weight of sustaining a system that dehumanizes people. The idea of fighting for the Confederacy, which is trying to preserve such an institution, has grown heavier and heavier. The slaves on our property, who have begun to speak of liberty, remind me daily of the basic inequity that underlies our