Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

by Jonathan Kennedy

At the outset of the conflict in spring 1861, Lincoln was trying to maintain a fragile war coalition that included not only his fellow Republicans but also Northern Democrats and Unionists in border slave states that hadn’t seceded. His objectives were therefore relatively modest: to keep the South in the union and restrict the expansion of slavery. He realized that promising to abolish slavery would have ripped this alliance apart. But by the summer of 1862, as the North’s war effort continued to struggle, Lincoln was willing to consider more radical measures. He came round to the idea that abolishing slavery could break the deadlock. African American slave laborers were, after all, a crucial part of the Southern economy and also played a big role in providing logistical support to the Confederate Army. They were, according to Lincoln, “undeniably an element of strength to those who had their service, and we must decide whether that element should be with us or against us.”[89] On 22 September he concluded that abolishing slavery had become “a military necessity, absolutely essential to the preservation of the Union.” Then, 100 days later on New Year’s Day 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves…are, and henceforward shall be free.”