Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-11-2016

Department 1

Civil War Era Studies

Department 2

History

Abstract

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” Abraham Lincoln said in 1864. “I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.”

Yet there has always been doubt about just how great an emancipator he really was. Why did he wait for two years into his presidency to issue his Emancipation Proclamation? And why didn’t that Proclamation free all the 3.9 million African-Americans then held in bondage? [excerpt]

Required Publisher's Statement

Original version is available from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

COinS