The Last Day of Slavery

Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast · Jun 19, 2023 · 17m

If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.

– Abraham Lincoln, August 22nd, 1862

While Lincoln wrote those words in 1862, following them up with his Emancipation Proclamation, the reality was that he had no viable way to actually enforce them. Days earlier, the Union had “won” the…