Season 2, Episode 10 | The Emancipation Proclamation: The Path to Juneteenth and the End of Slavery in America

Abraham Lincoln claimed he only wanted to save the Union. So how did he end up freeing millions of enslaved Americans?

In this special Juneteenth episode, host Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Diana Schaub, professor emerita of political science at Loyola University Maryland and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A leading Lincoln scholar, Schaub brings deep insight into the political, legal, and moral complexity of emancipation.

Together, they explore how Lincoln’s views on slavery evolved, how he balanced his constitutional oath with his personal convictions, and why his famous executive order—though limited in scope—became the most consequential in American history. The episode also traces the military strategy, legal ambiguities, and political finesse that led to the 13th Amendment and the legacy of Juneteenth.

In This Episode

• (00:00:00) Opening and introduction
• (00:01:16) Lincoln’s stance on slavery and the Constitution
• (00:01:44) Slavery as a state vs. federal issue
• (00:02:18) The battle over territories and the spread of slavery
• (00:03:28) Lincoln’s strategy: Quarantine and gradual extinction
• (00:05:44) Changing Southern attitudes: Slavery as a positive good
• (00:07:14) Lincoln’s efforts with border states and gradual emancipation
• (00:08:41) Decision for executive action: Emancipation Proclamation
• (00:10:51) Scope and strategy of the Emancipation Proclamation
• (00:11:46) Reassuring border states and shaping public opinion
• (00:13:55) Effectiveness of the Emancipation Proclamation
• (00:15:26) African American troops and military impact
• (00:17:19) Legal status of the Emancipation Proclamation post-war
• (00:18:32) The need for the 13th Amendment
• (00:20:16) Lincoln’s political strategy for the 13th Amendment
• (00:22:29) Lincoln’s signature and ratification process
• (00:23:05) Failure of the first House vote
• (00:24:17) Lincoln’s sense of timing and political skill
• (00:25:28) Black troops and the right to vote
• (00:26:31) Civil War: Union vs. abolition motives
• (00:27:32) Gettysburg Address and the moral meaning of the Union
• (00:29:06) Gettysburg Address vs. Second Inaugural Address
• (00:30:31) National responsibility and postwar reconciliation
• (00:33:22) Final reflections and closing

Notable Quotes

• [00:01:45] “Slavery was regarded as a domestic institution... governed at the state level, it was considered a state matter.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:04:36] “Lincoln thought that the Founders put slavery in a position of moral and physical quarantine.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:05:07] “The Southerners took that as the death knell of slavery and were prepared to secede over it.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:14:11] “The Emancipation Proclamation assumes that slaves will take action on their own. It in fact invites them to take action on their own.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:15:45] “By the end of the Civil War, one-fifth of the Union troops were African American.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:26:46] “The Union is everything because the Union has moral worth. It has moral content.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:27:16] “Lincoln believed that if slavery were to have spread into the territories, then it would actually become perpetual.” — Diana Schaub
• [00:32:49] “The point of the theological interpretation is to try to get Americans to transcend those bad passions and move in the direction of charity.” — Diana Schaub

Transcript

Intro:
 [0:03 - 0:08]
 We the people do ordain and establish This Constitution.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [0:13 - 1:43]
Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston, and today we have a fantastic guest. We have Diana Schaub here with us today. She is a professor emerita of political science at Loyola University Maryland a non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of several books, including a relatively recent book on Lincoln's statesmanship and rhetoric. And she has agreed to take time out of her very busy schedule today to do a special episode in honor of Juneteenth.

So let's just set the stage on Juneteenth for just a second here. Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when Major General Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas—900 days after the original enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation and just a couple of months before we got the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

But at the heart of Juneteenth is the Emancipation Proclamation. And to speak about the Emancipation Proclamation, we have to talk about Lincoln. And you're our Lincoln expert here. So I'd like to start with Lincoln's official stance on slavery to set the stage.

Lincoln is an ardent opponent of the expansion of slavery into the territories. But he makes it clear very early on—for example, in his first inaugural address—that he did not believe that either the president or Congress had the power to touch slavery where it already existed in the South. So why and how, then, did he expect slavery to end?

Diana Schaub
 [1:44 - 3:51]
 Yeah, good. Slavery was regarded as a domestic institution. To the extent that it was governed by laws, it was governed at the state level—it was considered a state matter. It's always important to remember that when we're going back to the early years, the first hundred years of the nation, there was really a very weak federal government. We really did have a system of divided authority between the federal government and the states.

So slavery was considered a state matter, and that meant that the battle over slavery really did take place over the territories—whether slavery would be allowed to spread into the territories or not. And then of course, battles over new states that were formed out of those federal territories.

So with respect to the territories, Congress had full and complete control. You had constitutional authority over the territories—they could ban slavery, as they did repeatedly. Slavery is banned under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance very early on. And then in 1820, with respect to new territories—the Louisiana Purchase territories—slavery is banned above a certain line, above the 36°30′ line.

Then what happens in 1854 is you get the Kansas-Nebraska Act. And what Kansas-Nebraska proposes to do is open up territories to the spread of slavery where slavery had previously been banned under the Missouri Compromise. So there is now an emerging disagreement over actually the powers of Congress.

The original understanding was that Congress had full and complete control over the territories, but now the claim was being made that, well, we've got to practice equal justice to the Southerners—and they have this property. Shouldn't they be allowed to move with their property into new parts of the country?

So that is the battle that Lincoln is engaged in. He does not want slavery to spread. He thinks if it spreads, then it will become perpetual. And eventually, not only will slavery spread into the new territories, but eventually you won't be able to make the argument any longer that there can be free states. Right? If slaveholders can go where they like with their property, then why couldn't they go to Illinois or Massachusetts with their slave property?

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [3:51 - 3:57]
 Right. So does he articulate early any vision for how slavery is then ended?

Diana Schaub
 [3:57 - 4:57]
 Yes. Good. So the battle is over slavery in the territories. What he believed was that if we could get back to the policy of restriction—and he believed that this was the policy that the Founders had adopted—that the Founders actually had succeeded in placing slavery in the course of ultimate extinction.

So he believes this will be a gradual process. What you have to have first is that slavery has to once again be branded as an evil—a moral evil—and it is tolerated only by necessity in those places where it has a long pre-existing existence.

So basically, Lincoln thought that the Founders put slavery in a position of moral and physical quarantine. And if we would return to the truths of the Declaration and the policies that were consistent with those self-evident truths, that would put slavery back in that position.

And actually, an indication that he was probably correct about this is the reaction to his election.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [4:59 - 4:59]
 Right.

Diana Schaub
 [4:59 - 5:31]
 He's elected, he has pledged he will do nothing about slavery in the slave states. His policy is only non-extension. And the Southerners took that as the death knell of slavery and were prepared to secede over it. So I think that is a kind of confirmation that he was correct—that the policy of quarantine would strangle slavery.

In other words, for slavery to endure, it really had to spread. And what the Southerners had in mind was the building of a vast slave empire. They wanted to acquire new territories; they wanted to acquire Cuba and other territories.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [5:31 - 5:44]
 Right. This terminology of quarantine, I think, is excellent—both physical and moral quarantine. He's fighting the physical quarantine battle. It's much harder to fight the moral quarantine battle, which had been slipping since the 1830s.

Diana Schaub
 [5:44 - 6:07]
 Right. In other words, at the time of the founding, slavery was regarded as an evil. It was argued that it was a necessary evil. So even those who were wedded to the continuance of slavery admitted that it was an evil—but they claimed it was a necessary evil. But beginning around 1820, you get the emergence of a new argument—that slavery is a positive good.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [6:07 - 6:09]
 This is John C. Calhoun.

Diana Schaub
 [6:09 - 6:09]
 Yes.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [6:09 - 6:10]
 Okay.

Diana Schaub
 [6:10 - 6:15]
 Lincoln believes that the nation is actually regressing, and he's trying to halt that and then to reverse it.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [6:15 - 7:13]
 Well, there's something there about tolerating a moral injustice for so long—either leads to you have to get rid of it or you have to learn to tolerate it. It leads to moral regression.

Okay, so the South begins to secede—even though he's promised we're not going to touch it in the South. They begin to secede and we get Civil War. It's fairly clear that Lincoln's primary focus during the early years of the war is saving the Union. And he makes this point in a letter to Horace Greeley in 1862.

I'm going to read this off because it's perfect: "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 slaves, I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."

So at the time he writes this letter to Horace Greeley, he already has a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation that he has prepared, which is predicated on the president's military authority. How do we square these two things?

Diana Schaub
 [7:14 - 11:45]
 Let me take us back just a few months before that Greeley letter. Okay. Lincoln spent some months trying to persuade the border states—so these are the states that have not seceded, but that have slavery, right? So they are loyal, slave-holding states, loyal to the Union. And he wants them to take the step of declaring that they will move towards gradual emancipation.

So Lincoln very much wanted the end of slavery to come through voluntary action on the part of slave-holding states. He believed it would be better if it were gradual rather than immediate in order to give those freed a chance to become educated and be prepared for the rigors of freedom. And he thought that emancipation should be accomplished by compensating the slaveholders.

He didn't think that the final owners of that form of property should bear the entire burden. In other words, this was a kind of national sin, and the taxpayers should pay for it to get us free of the institution of slavery.

So he met with them repeatedly. He told them that they could end the war. He really believed that if the border states were to come out in favor of an end to slavery, that would convince the seceding states that they had no hope of success in winning the Civil War.

So he thought that that would really deprive them of their war morale. And he told them they could go down as the ones to have ended the Civil War, freed the nation from slavery.

They did nothing. They refused to do anything. He made a final pitch to them in, I think, June or July of ’62. They rebuffed him. And it was really at that point that he determined that he would have to proceed through executive action.

So he drafts the Emancipation Proclamation and reads it to his cabinet. They suggest waiting until a military victory—sitting kind of in the top drawer, ready to go. And it's at that point that Greeley attacks him.

And so he takes the opportunity to write a public letter in response to Greeley. Lincoln really used these public letters to great advantage—it was a way of communicating directly with the public and preparing them for steps that he intended to take.

So I think this is actually part of his public relations campaign to support the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. And he writes it to explain to the public the proper relationship between union and abolition.

And so that's the point of that passage that you read aloud. He makes it clear that saving the Union is his mission as president. He's taken an oath of office to perpetuate our political institutions.

Now, at the end of that letter, he says it's his personal wish that all men everywhere might be free—but that's not his official duty. His official duty is to save the Union, and abolition is subordinate to that aim.

But if the situation emerges where the only way to save the Union is to free the slaves, Lincoln says he will do that.

So he lays out three possibilities here in the passage that you quoted. One would be if he could bring the seceding states to come back into the Union—if they agreed to that day, well, slavery would still be intact. And he would accept that because he would have ended the Civil War and preserved the Union. So, as he says: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it."

Second option: What about freeing all the slaves? What if that would save the Union? And he says: "I'd do that. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it."

And then he floats this third possibility—and really the most intriguing one: "If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."

And that is actually what he's already decided to do. The Emancipation Proclamation applies only to slaves held by rebels within rebel territory. So the Emancipation Proclamation does not apply to the loyal, slave-holding states—it doesn't apply in Kentucky, Delaware, Missouri, or Maryland.

And it doesn't apply to these very minimal areas where Union troops have already reconquered—some parts of Louisiana, some parts of Virginia. So the policy that he's going to pursue is going to be a very interesting one—a kind of sophisticated or complicated one.

And it seems to me he's trying to prepare the public for that so that people kind of sit up and say, "Oh—free some and leave others alone. Right."

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [11:46 - 12:00]
 So I like this idea of preparing the public with this public response to Horace Greeley. Is there also a second purpose in this statement to kind of calm the border states? He has this great quote, "I hope God is on my side, but I must have Kentucky."

Diana Schaub
 [12:00 - 12:01]
 Right, right.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [12:01 - 12:04]
 So is this also an attempt to basically say, no, Union is the pin?

Diana Schaub
 [12:04 - 12:57]
 Yes, right. So it is this sort of public opinion. He’s shaping public opinion. I believe he’s also expressing his true understanding of the relationship between Union and abolition. Union is his mission—to save the Union—and abolition is subordinate to that. But when one embraces the other, he will do it. He wants to make sure they understand the argument that he’s operating under and that they share that. So you’re right. This will be a reassurance to those who don’t want the war for the Union to turn into an abolition war. It will possibly reassure them a little bit. They’re still going to be unhappy, but if they still think that the main aim is Union, they might go along with it. And probably the abolitionists will accept it because he is now taking this step, or he’s at least floating that possibility.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [12:57 - 12:59]
 Right. Freeing some is better than none.

Diana Schaub
 [12:59 - 12:59]
 Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [12:59 - 13:54]
 Right. We’ll take that step. So let’s then move to the Emancipation Proclamation. So in September 22, 1862, we see the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed that all enslaved persons in areas designated as in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, are free. The final Emancipation Proclamation comes out a few months later and, as you said, specifically designates those areas which are officially under rebellion. So what do you make of the Emancipation Proclamation? I mean, technically, it frees 3.5 to 4 million enslaved persons, but not in any kind of enforceable or immediate way. So it’s—there’s no way to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in areas of the South that are in rebellion. And enslaved persons who are in non-rebelling areas or areas under Union control are not freed. So does the Emancipation Proclamation actually have any teeth?

Diana Schaub
 [13:55 - 16:22]
 I’m gonna argue that it did. Okay. I think it is the most consequential executive order ever issued. And it really did work—the freedom of millions. Now, it’s true, just the paper declaration alone is not enough, but the Emancipation Proclamation assumes that slaves will take action on their own. It in fact invites them to take action on their own. And one of the changes that Lincoln makes between the preliminary Proclamation in September of ’62 and the final one on January 1, 1863, is that he adds a paragraph about welcoming the formerly enslaved into the Union armies—the Army and the Navy. And that’s a big change.

So he assumes that the word will get out, which it did. The slave grapevine worked very well. They knew about the Proclamation of Freedom and immediately slaves began slipping away, fleeing—actually in some cases staying put and demanding wages. You know, “We now have a different status. We’re free. We want to be paid for the work that we are doing.” So you started to, you know, see a kind of transformation of the situation on the ground. So it did assume agency on the part of slaves. I think that expectation was met.

It also assumed the success of Union arms. And those successes came. And these two movements—the actions taken by slaves themselves and then the action of Union troops—actually work together. They are kind of mutually reinforcing. So what happens? You have slaves showing up now as Union troops start to advance. You have them, you know, sort of joining the Union lines. And then you have the freedmen joining the Army, which leads to more Union successes.

So by the end of the Civil War, one-fifth of the Union troops are African American. There are almost 200,000 African Americans who fight for the Union, and almost all of those are former slaves. You do have the first Colored Troops that were formed—the 54th and 55th Massachusetts. Those were primarily recruited from freedmen—sorry, free men, you know, Blacks who had long been free. But, you know, once the Proclamation starts to take effect, almost all of these new Union troops are former slaves. So it had the effect—and more—that Lincoln expected from it.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [16:22 - 16:26]
 And it provides proof of its military justification, right?

Diana Schaub
 [16:27 - 16:54]
 Yes. In other words, the notion was: What is enabling the South, which has, you know, far less in terms of men and material—what is enabling them to win these battles? You know, besides their quite good generals? It was the fact that the slaves were still on the home front, growing crops, feeding people—yeah—doing all of that. So it’s basically a measure to deprive the South of the manpower of the slaves, and then, with the invitation to join the Union Army, actually transferring that manpower to the Union.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [16:55 - 17:05]
 Right. So you got this proof for this executive order, which you call the most consequential executive order in American history. By the way, that stat—one out of every five Union soldiers—that is so good.

Diana Schaub
 [17:05 - 17:18]
 It also means that after the war—because many of the Blacks had joined later, right, post-1863—the troops who were, you know, enforcing the peace in the South were usually African American troops.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [17:18 - 17:19]
 That is very cool.

Diana Schaub
 [17:19 - 17:19]
 Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [17:19 - 17:32]
 Okay. But we still have a question about the Emancipation Proclamation. You say it was deeply effective, that it actually did accomplish its goals. But there is a legal question about it. What happens after the war? Would the Emancipation Proclamation still be legally binding?

Diana Schaub
 [17:32 - 17:47]
 Yeah. Lincoln was worried about this. I mean, he really tried in writing it to make it legally sound—something that would stand up if it were to be litigated. He apparently spent more time writing this document than any other document he ever wrote.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [17:47 - 17:47]
 Really?

Diana Schaub
 [17:47 - 18:14]
 Yeah. And, you know, there are usually complaints about the Emancipation Proclamation—you know, it doesn’t have any high-flown rhetoric. You know, the famous line is: It reads like a bill of lading. You know, this kind of, you know, description of which provinces in Louisiana are conquered or not reconquered yet. So he tried to make it legally sound, but he knew that it could be challenged, especially given the fact that you still have Roger B. Taney on the Supreme Court—okay, kind of his nemesis.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [18:14 - 18:14]
 Right.

Diana Schaub
 [18:14 - 18:38]
 Yeah. In the judiciary. So he really did look to the 13th Amendment. He called it the king’s cure for all of these difficulties that the Emancipation Proclamation might face. And you can see why he was worried about it. If it’s undertaken not of military necessity, and that military necessity has passed, can the executive really declare people to be “henceforth and forever free”?

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [18:38 - 18:39]
 Right.

Diana Schaub
 [18:39 - 18:54]
 It’s the forever part, right? It was certainly the case that generals can confiscate property and use it for limited purposes during time of war—but what happens afterwards? So he was worried about the danger of re-enslavement.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [18:55 - 19:31]
 And the Emancipation Proclamation takes a long time to take effect—slowly—as you’re getting more territory, as you see in Texas. Right? It takes 900 days to take effect in Texas. But you make the point that amendment is the silver bullet here. This is the way to solve all of these potential legal problems. It’s a way to get around the Supreme Court—and the worst Supreme Court justice. Why didn’t he call for amendment earlier? So it’s not until the Senate passes a joint resolution in April of 1864, and then the House follows suit in January of 1865. He never lives to see its ratification. Why not call for this much earlier than he did?

Diana Schaub
 [19:32 - 20:16]
 I think he was pretty quick off the mark on this. Again, remember, there are these issues with public opinion. I mean, the Emancipation Proclamation itself encountered a lot of resistance. Remember after the Battle of Gettysburg, the draft riots break out in New York City. Right? So there’s always resistance to a draft, but in this case, especially since it looked as if the war had become a war for abolition, there were lots of men who didn’t want to be drafted for such a cause. So there is this problem of public opinion. In other words, you can’t pass a constitutional amendment if you don’t have enough support to get two-thirds of Congress to support it and three-fourths of the states. That’s a high ask. We have not passed many constitutional amendments.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [20:16 - 20:18]
 He couldn’t have called for it in 1861, right?

Diana Schaub
 [20:18 - 21:13]
 Yeah. But he did move quickly to try to make sure that it would pass. So, for instance, he insisted that the 13th Amendment be part of the platform of the Republican Party in 1864. So that’s already mid-1864—he’s pushing to get it in the platform for the upcoming November election. He also took action to bring Nevada in as a state, because to get the three-quarters, they had done their count and you were going to need a new state. And so Nevada was brought in very quickly as a new state to make sure. It was also to influence the election a bit that you had coming up. So Nevada became a state in October of ’64, and it was done so hastily, actually, that they sent their proposed state constitution by telegram. It is the longest, the most expensive telegram ever sent.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [21:14 - 21:14]:
 Worth it.

Diana Schaub
 [21:14 - 22:25]:
 Yeah. So he also took action to secure passage by the House. So you mentioned that the Senate had passed it 4-64. The House actually voted on it also, and it did not pass. And the first try after the election in November, Lincoln pushed for the outgoing Congress, which was still in session through July, for the outgoing Congress, the outgoing House, to try again. Okay, so now you have no new people in the House, and yet he insisted they try again. The new incoming House was more Republican than the outgoing House. It would have passed easily in the new Congress, but he pushed for the outgoing Congress that had already rejected it once—that the House, the House of Representatives, to do it again, to try again. And then he brought great pressure to bear on a number of Democrats—Northern Democrats—who had voted against it the first time, but who actually switched their votes. And he really pulled out all the stops to do that. And in fact, the Spielberg movie Lincoln traces, you know, fairly accurately some of what was done in order to secure passage.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [22:26 - 22:29]:
 That movie is my permanent extra credit assignment, by the way, in my classes.

Diana Schaub
 [22:29 - 23:05]:
 I've seen it many, many times. One final thing that he did—once it was passed, once both houses had recommended its adoption—he actually signed it because it was sent to him for distribution to the states. He actually signed it. Now, it's not a... it did not require a presidential signature, but I think he wanted to indicate that he had a hand in this and that he was in favor of it. And then it was submitted for ratification to the states. As you say, he did not live to see its ratification. That wasn’t accomplished until the end of December of ’65, but I think he was very confident that it would be ratified, and he knew that they had the state votes, yeah, lined up.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [23:05 - 23:13]:
 Raised two new points here that I think are very interesting. And the first is that it fails in the first vote in the House. Why? Why does it fail in the first vote in the House?

Diana Schaub
 [23:14 - 23:34]:
 Yeah, you see this repeatedly. Saw it with, you know, what I said about the border states—tries to get the border states to do it, they refuse. As soon as the Emancipation Proclamation is issued, both Maryland and Missouri move quickly to abolish slavery in their states, and they do it without compensation.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [23:34 - 23:35]:
 How do you explain that?

Diana Schaub
 [23:36 - 24:06]:
 Well, it shows something—that, you know, most human beings are followers, not leaders. Even those who’ve been elected to be representatives and leaders, they didn’t have the courage to take that step, to think anew as Lincoln did. I think the same thing happens, you know, with the 13th Amendment. The Democrats have always... they’re not particularly progressive on these questions of race and slavery, and they weren’t going to be the ones to step forward in this way.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [24:06 - 24:16]:
 That's amazing—the border states. And then you mentioned that Lincoln does not wait until the new Congress comes in, which is more Republican. Why not wait? Is it just because momentum is on your side? You have to...

Diana Schaub
 [24:16 - 24:36]:
 He wants to see it done. It’s interesting, you know, there are moments where he’s so cautious, where he has to wait—right, he believes that he has to wait for public opinion to support him—and then there are moments where he knows the time is ripe and you need action now. And I think that’s how he saw it. He thought he could get it through and it would be important to do it.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [24:36 - 25:01]:
 This speaks to the remarkable political skill of Abraham Lincoln. You’ve mentioned earlier how he uses these public letters to shape public opinion. And there are times when he kind of takes the foot off the gas, and times when he really drives public opinion and pushes through the 13th Amendment. I can’t think of a more skillful politician in American history—other than maybe FDR and his ability to shape public opinion.

Diana Schaub
 [25:02 - 25:45]:
 You see him also doing this with respect to the vote for African Americans. So there’s another one of these public letters—the letter to Conkling—where he has this lovely praise of the African American troops, and he actually presents them as fighting for the principle of the regime, and he identifies that principle of the regime with the ballot. So I think he really already understands that that is the next step. But that’s going to be another hard one to prepare public opinion for. It might also be worth saying that receiving Blacks into the armed services—that is another thing that lays the foundation for a claim to the vote. And certainly Frederick Douglass understood it that way. Once the Black troops fought for the Union, it would be an act of injustice to deny them the vote.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [25:46 - 26:39]:
 Right. Well, you see that same idea because of Black soldiers in World War II, which takes us straight to the civil rights movement. There’s something about serving in the armed force... this is so interesting. We’ve spoken about Lincoln’s public position, and then there’s Lincoln’s private position, which he mentions at the end of that Horace Greeley letter, right? “But my personal wish is that all men everywhere be free.” And in some ways, Lincoln is finding a way to do both—to kind of reconcile both his public duties, his constitutional duties, and his private wish in some way. The question I would end with—and this could be a longer answer—is: was the Civil War really only about saving the Union for Lincoln, or did he have ulterior motives? You see this almost in the Second Inaugural. It’s like he’s resetting the stage for the Civil War to be about more than just the Union, but about kind of eliminating that original sin of slavery.

Diana Schaub
 [26:39 - 26:41]:
 Yeah, okay, I’m gonna object to your word only.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [26:41 - 26:42]:
 Oh, please.

Diana Schaub
 [26:42 - 26:47]:
 Is it really only about saving the Union? I actually think that for him, the Union is everything.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [26:47 - 26:48]:
 Ah.

Diana Schaub
 [26:48 - 28:26]:
 Because the Union has moral worth. It has moral content. I will say something about the Second Inaugural, but let’s start with Gettysburg. Right? “Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” So, conceived in liberty, dedicated to equality. It is that nation that he defines in the Gettysburg Address. It’s that nation that is being saved. Lincoln believed that if slavery were to have spread into the territories, then it would actually become perpetual, and we would then be a different kind of Union. He says this in the letter to Joshua Speed—his friend—in 1854, 1855. He says, you know, if we get to that point, he says, “I’m just gonna move to Russia, where I can take my despotism straight and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” So that would be a different kind of Union. He would then be confronted with the question, is this a Union that he wants to be part of? But so long as the nation still holds to the truth of human equality—and the sort of political implications of that truth, government by consent—then the Union is worth saving. So this is why he is able to say that he can tolerate the continued existence of slavery in the slave states, so long as everyone understands that slavery is evil, and that the toleration is only the minimal that must be granted to this long-existing wrong.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [28:26 - 28:27]:
 Moral quarantine, as you say.

Diana Schaub
 [28:27 - 29:06]:
 Yes, the moral quarantine. And that the effect of that—if you keep that moral quarantine and pressure on that—it will mean eventually that there will be a movement toward the purification of the nation. Right? You can’t live forever in that position. And that’s why he says the nation will become either all one thing or all the other thing. But he believes that the policy of moral and physical quarantine will be enough to move the nation in the direction of being all free. So that’s why the fight is for the Union. And if you hang on to that Union, slavery will eventually disappear.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [29:06 - 29:07]:
 So Union is properly understood.

Diana Schaub
 [29:08 - 30:30]:
 Yeah, the Union is properly understood. And he has given the definition of the Union—properly understood—in the Gettysburg Address. So he really explained to the American public what was at stake in the Civil War. Now, you mentioned the Second Inaugural. And I think the question would then be sort of, what is the relationship between the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural? Because in the Second Inaugural, he suggests that yes, the human actors had certain ends in view. But he indicates there that there seems to have been this mysterious force at work—God’s purposes. “The Almighty has his own purposes,” distinct from the purposes of any of the human actors. And in retrospect, he said, you couldn’t have discerned it at the time. But given all that has unfolded—you know, the horrific war and the length of the war—that suggests that God’s purpose was to end slavery. And more than ending slavery, to actually punish the nation for the long existence—North and South. North and South. It is American slavery. It’s not Southern slavery. It’s not African slavery. It’s American slavery. I think Lincoln believes that it was his duty to put Union first. And even in retrospect, now that he has some insight into God’s purposes, he would not have done it differently. That was the oath he took—to save the Union. But things are more complicated, and there were other forces at work.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [30:31 - 30:49]:
 And in this moment, in the Second Inaugural, Lincoln is again almost going beyond the bounds of a presidential address to some kind of new character. He's not just a prophet. It's almost, dare I say, Old Testament prophetic—almost. He's speaking in moral terms in a way he doesn't normally do. He normally speaks in legal terms.

Diana Schaub
 [30:49 - 33:00]:
 Oh, I don't think that's true. I think he almost always speaks in moral terms—all the speeches from the 1850s. Okay, but you're right, I mean, he is speaking in theological terms, right? He is offering a kind of theological explanation of the war and its meaning—of the war. But it does seem to me that he is doing that for very clear political purposes. And his political purpose is really indicated by the final paragraph. In other words, he hopes that if Americans join in viewing the war in this way—viewing the war as God's punishment of a sinning nation—that they will be prepared to act in a new way: with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on.

So the final paragraph of the Second Inaugural is actually—it's an imperative sentence. Let us strive on. That's the sentence. And that striving has to be done in a certain spirit, right? Without malice, with charity, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right—which means imperfectly, right? We don't have perfect vision.

And then he specifies what are the things we have to do, right? We have to bind up the nation's wounds. We have to care for the widow and for the orphans. We have to seek a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. So it's just a remarkable final paragraph, but the point of the speech before that is to make that final paragraph possible.

So he thinks that really the American people have to be gentled. There is a great danger of revenge after the war. The North is going to blame the South for the war and hold them to account and seek reparations. The South is going to be resentful of the Northern victory, is going to be resentful of Blacks. Blacks are maybe going to seek their own kind of revenge for 250 years of unrequited toil. So there are all of these really problematic political passions out there. And the point of the theological interpretation is to try to get Americans to transcend those bad passions and move in the direction of charity.

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [33:00 - 33:01]:
 So if it was a common sin...

Diana Schaub
 [33:01 - 33:21]:
 Yeah. In other words, almost a kind of shifting of the blame to God. I mean, it's also making the blame national, right? In other words, we're not going to blame you of the South for this. We are all complicit in it. If we understand this as a national transgression, would you of the South be willing to join with us in making real that new birth of freedom?

Savannah Eccles Johnston
 [33:21 - 33:49]:
 Right. So in the final estimation, the purpose of the Civil War is to save the Union, properly understood—North and South together—without long-term ramifications, without long-term blame, with a new peace and a new movement forward. And he doesn't live to see it, which is the sad part. I think we should cap off here. But I just have to say, this was so excellent. Thank you for giving us your time today.

Diana Schaub
 [33:49 - 33:50]:
 Enjoyed it very much.

Outro
 [33:52 - 34:33]:
 The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self-government that shapes every part of our civic life—from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.