Old Fat Guy is fast becoming one of my new favorite bloggers. He made a couple of assertions in a comment to me today that I thought were important enough to make a post about. He said that Abe Lincoln; (A.) Was not primarily concerned about abolition and (B.) Began the suspension of Constitutional guarantees that has led to the political mischief that we have today. It would take a dozen professional historians to debate and come to any conclusions on point (B.) but I have something to say on point (A.)

Whenever historians argue over the causes of the American Civil War the two issues that dominate the discussion are abolition and states' rights. As a matter of fact Lincoln gave a third reason for prosecuting the war that I've never heard any historian comment on. He stated it in his own succinct way in his Gettysburg Address. The primary issue in his mind was whether or not the American experiment in Democracy could be preserved.

I do believe, contrary to Fat Guy's opinion, that Lincoln was a supporter of abolition and it was that issue that was foremost in his thoughts when he noted that the "new nation (was) conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

All in all, then, there were three main reasons for the Union to make war rather than permit the Confederates to secede:

1. To save the Union.
2. To preserve democracy.
3. To free the slaves.

Of those three issues only two are mentioned outright in the Gettysburg Address: the preservation of Democracy and the equality of all men. So whatever historians might argue as the primary cause of the Civil War it would be difficult to deny that abolition was a priority in Lincoln's own mind.

Oddly enough the one issue not settled by the war is now becoming the hottest issue of this political season; that all men are created equal. Because if everyone believed it we'd all simply be voting on the qualifications of the candidates rather than their gender or skin color.