The Abolitionist Study Part 2

The months leading up to Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, in 1861, were filled with telegraph reports of states like Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida taking their leave from the Union as one by one the southern states recombined themselves into the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy had taken the step that Douglass has assumed they would not. As Lincoln entered the presidency he became commander and chief of a military slowly spreading itself apart with two factions the abolitionist and the confederates ready for war. Even though newly in office Lincoln also knew the conditions were right for civil conflict.

On the slavery issue, the middle ground seemed to be disappearing and it was time to pick a side. With the secession of the southern states, Lincoln had to have realized that he no longer had to play by southern rules with regard to the agreements made about fugitive slaves, and southern slave hunters. Separating themselves from the union meant the south would have to use its own guns and could no longer count on northern support when it came to southern slaves.

But where the Confederates were unified against the abolitionist north and the abolitionist north just as unified against the Confederacy, as commander and chief, Lincoln has to mount a defense with union forces that were in many ways a mixture of both sides. So where Frederick Douglass might have said: "forward into battle men to free the slaves." Lincoln might have said, "Forward into battle men to preserve the union."

The war was on, and I'm sure that mothers in the south, as well as mothers in the north, cautioned their sons going off to war to remember that they might have relatives, driven into the conflict between the states just as they were, fighting on the other side. Battlefields in the north and south would be soaked in blood over the next few years as American fought against each other sacrificing their limbs, their youth, their lives and I suspect in some cases even their relatives on the other side of the battlefield. Both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass knew that no matter who won the war the U.S. would be changed forever.

Just as the gloves were off for President Lincoln with the secession of the southern states, when it came to the southern demands on the north where slavery was concerned, the Confederates in many ways felt the same and as a result. Many prominent white Abolitionist suddenly found themselves in needed 24-hour protection from southerners and southern sympathizers. In the case of Thomas Garrett, the community around him including many African Americans armed themselves and protected the valuable member of their community day and night. (To be continued)