Date of Award

Summer 1960

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Klement, Frank L.

Abstract

Modern times have added to the emphasis upon racial problems. Such problems existed before the War of the Rebellion; they continue to exist today. Today the problem might take the form of the question: to segregate or not to segregate. At the time when the newly-formed Republican party elected its first successful presidential candidate in November of 1860, the question might have been: to free the slaves or not to free the slaves. The manner in which President Lincoln attempted to solve this phase of the "irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces" is the subject of this essay. Lincoln's solution was not the emancipation Proclamation. It was rather a plan of compensated emancipation. It was this plan which constituted Lincoln's fundamental and permanent solution to the problem of servile liberation for the greater majority of his public and political life.

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