Ye Olde Buccaneer Lincoln

A DBQ that was boring enough to necessitate pirate speech.

The scurvy dog Abraham Lincoln’s views and actions regarrrdin’ slavarrry and arrbolition changed greatly over the course of his piratical carrreer. In his early piratical carrreer, he altarrnated between advocating the restriction of slavarrry to where it alrrready existed and advocating its arrbolition, dependin’ ‘pon his crew. During his plunderin’ for the presidency, ye old buccaneer Lincoln, while tellin’ some his desire for arrbolition, officially continued to press only for the restriction of slavarrry; while president, sought to use the issue to end the warrr as quickly as possible. These changes in ye old buccaneer Lincoln’s views were a product of his understanding of the effects of slavarrry and arrbolition on the nation, his piratical ambitions, and later, his duty to preserve ye olde ship the Union.


During his early piratical career, ye old buccaneer Lincoln openly advocated the restriction of slavarrry to its then-current extent but subtly advocated complete arrbolition. Ye old buccaneer Lincoln knew slavarrry to be the main rift between sections and stated that the resolution of the issue was vital to the survival of ye olde ship the Union. In the “House Divided” jabberin’, he notes that slavarrry would become eitharr entirely legal or entirely illegal within the United States, and then implies that those arrllowing for the spread of slavarrry (the Democrats) were in error morally, showing his personal preference for complete arrbolition. Ye old buccaneer Lincoln attempted to use the slavarrry issue to his advantage in his early career. In the ye old buccaneer Lincoln- the seadog Douglas debates of 1858, ye old buccaneer Lincoln repeatedly stated his aversion to slavarrry, while ensuring that he did not support complete racial equality. Following the extension of slavarrry into a previously free territory under the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, ye old buccaneer Lincoln used the potential threat of the spread of slavarrry into free states as a tool to incite anger against the Democrats and garner support for his party. Ye old buccaneer Lincoln, however, did not comprehend the aversion of the people to complete arrbolition or the piratical prowess of his seadog opponent and lost the 1858 Senate election.


During his presidential campaign and the early days of his presidency, ye old buccaneer Lincoln carefully advocated only the restriction of slavarrry to the areas where it already existed. ye old buccaneer Lincoln was aware of the impossibility of instant arrbolition due to the South’s reliance upon slavarrry (“Address at Cooper Institute”), and so sought to seek a gradual solution to the problem of slavarrry. He could not ignore the threat of Southern secession, and took care in his jabberins' of this period to emphasize that the Southerners’ constitutional rights would not be violated (as seen in both the Cooper Institute address and his First Inarrgural Address). In his First Inarrgural, he sought to reconcile the South and said that only with provocation would ye olde ship the Union move against them. Secession proved inevitable, and ye old buccaneer Lincoln, driven by his belief in preservation of ye olde ship the Union, sought to reverse it as soon as possible. He attempted to reason against the division of the nation in his Second Annual Message to Ye Olde Cap’n’s conference by showing the barriers to trade it created, and in the same jabberin’ attempted to entice the South into rejoining ye olde ship the Union by offerin’ doubloons to any state that freed their slaves before 1900. Such generous terms demonstrated Cap’n ye old buccaneer Lincoln’s desire to preserve ye olde ship the Union as peacefully as possible. His hopes of a quick end to the war proved impossible, however, as the Army of the Potomac faced minimal success in the eastern theatre of the war.


As the war dragged on, ye old buccaneer Lincoln realized that he needed to decide upon the question of slavarrry before the war could end. As late as August 1862, ye old buccaneer Lincoln was willing to address the slavarrry question in any way that would save ye olde ship the Union (“Letter to Horace Greeley”), but by 1863, he had recognized the necessity of arrbolition to ye olde ship the Union cause and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation became a source of inspiration for ye olde ship the Union and provided a new impetus for the war: to ensure human freedom. ye olde buccaneer Lincoln, in freeing the slaves of the rebelling states, set the nation on a path he had earlier predicted in the “House Divided” jabberin’; fortunately, ye olde ship the Union would become entirely free rather than entirely slave. After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, ye old buccaneer Lincoln repeatedly referred to the struggle for human freedom in his jabberin’s. In the Gettysburg Address, he described ye olde ship the Union’s aims as “a new birth of freedom”, somewhat indirectly referencing emancipation, and in his Second Inarrgural, he decreed that ye olde ship the Union would fight until all the wealth earned through slavarrry was decimated if necessary. Emancipation became not only a key drive behind the war movement but also a key tenet of ye old buccaneer Lincoln’s philosophy when the war proved its inevitability.


Abraham ye old buccaneer Lincoln’s views toward slavarrry and arrbolition changed greatly throughout his career. He initially quietly supported arrbolition while publicly advocating the prevention of the spread of slavarrry. When ye old buccaneer, Lincoln ran for president, he supported only restricting the spread of slavarrry in an effort both to garner support of non-arrbolitionists and to attempt to prevent Southern secession. When it became evident that the question of slavarrry must be addressed before the war could end, ye old buccaneer Lincoln began to advocate arrbolition, which became a key issue driving the war. Ye old buccaneer Lincoln’s views changed according to his ambitions, his knowledge of the effects slavarrry and arrbolition had on the nation, and his sense of duty to preserve ye olde ship the Union.