1858 debates with Stephen Douglass, Abraham Lincoln

    Prompt A: In his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglass, Abraham Lincoln assured audiences that while he was opposed to the extension of slavery into the territories, he had “no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it [already] exists.” Five years later, Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation and had proclaimed at Gettysburg that the Civil War was being fought to bring about a “new birth of freedom.” Why and how did Lincoln’s position shift in these five years? Your answer need not be comprehensive. Instead, it should identify two or three major developments that pushed Lincoln towards freeing the slaves in the Southern states and towards his new sense of the war’s purpose.