Directions: Fill out this document individually, make sure you are filling in your name, block,

and the date. You will answer the questions within the text boxes and utilize the information
from the quotes/History.com. Ask Ms. Williams for any questions you may have. You will get
one class period to work and complete.

Name:

Block:

Date:

Lincoln and Slavery: Using the quotes and article below, determine Abraham Lincoln’s
thoughts about slavery and whether he became president to free the slaves as the South believed.

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when
I did not so think, and feel." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler,
Volume VII, "Letter to Albert G. Hodges" (April 4, 1864), p. 281.

"I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in
these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole
Union." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Speech
at Cincinnati, Ohio" (September 17, 1859), p. 440.

"Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a
moral, social and political evil…The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P.
Basler, Volume III, "Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Galesburg" (October 7, 1858), p. 226

"We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it
exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it." The
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Speech at New
Haven, Connecticut" (March 6, 1860), p. 16.
"I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "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." Lincoln's First Inaugural Address,
March 4, 1861.
Article: 5 Things You May Not Know About Abraham Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation
(History.com)
1.What were Lincoln’s beliefs about slavery?
2. What did Lincoln say he could do about slavery in the Southern states? In the
Territories?

Secession: Why did Southern states leave the Union after Lincoln’s election?

Text Reasons
Articles of Secession Georgia:
Georgia
This is the (Republican) party to whom the
people of the North have committed the
Government. The prohibition of slavery in
the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the
equality of the black and white races…
South Carolina South Carolina:
On the 4th day of March next, this
(Republican) party will take possession of
the Government. … that a war must be
waged against slavery until it shall cease
throughout the United States.
Texas:
Texas
And, finally, by the combined sectional vote
of the seventeen non-slave-holding States,
they have elected as president and vice-
president of … for the ruin of the slave-
holding States. Mississippi:
Mississippi
It (Republican Party) has recently obtained
control of the Government, by the
prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and
destroyed the last expectation of living
 together in friendship and brotherhood.
Utter subjugation (slavery) awaits us in the
Union, if we should consent longer to remain
in it.

“…do not destroy this hope, and perhaps by it

lose all, and have your last slave wrenched
from you by stern military rule … or by the
vindictive decree of a universal emancipation,
which may reasonably be expected to follow.”
Speech by Alexander Stephens (1861)
“The whole influence of the Executive
Department of the Government, while in his
[Lincoln’s] hands, will be thrown against the
extension of slavery into the new territories of
the Union, and the re-opening of the African
slave-trade ... Thanksgiving Sermon
(Benjamin Morgan Palmer, 1860)

“Our new (Confederate) government is

founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its
foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests,
upon the great truth that the negro is not equal
to the white man; that slavery subordination to
the superior race is his natural and normal
condition. Cornerstone Speech, 1860

What were the Southern States afraid Lincoln would do as President? Do you believe
Southern States would have left the Union if Lincoln/Republican Party had lost the election
of 1860? Explain