Second–State what you understand by Slavery and the freedom that was to be given by the President’s proclamation.Answer–Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent. The freedom, as I understand it, promised by the proclamation, is taking us from under the yoke of bondage, and placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, take care of ourselves and assist the Government in maintaining our freedom.

Abraham Lincoln offered a first draft of history in his second inaugural address, casting the Civil War as a war for union that later became a spiritual process of national penance for two hundred and fifty years of slaving. Lincoln also looked to the future, envisioning a harmonious and speedy Reconstruction that would take place “with malice toward none” and “with charity for all.”

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 contest on November 6 with just 40% of the popular vote and not a single southern vote in the Electoral College. Within days, southern states were organizing secession conventions. On December 20, South Carolina voted to secede, and issued its “Declaration of the Immediate Causes.”

Our nurses we always called “Mammy,” and it was not considered good manners to address any old negro man or woman otherwise than as “uncle” or “aunt,” adding the name whatever that might be – the surname was always the master’s. We were taught to treat them with respect.

Rebecca Burlend, A True Picture of Emigration: Or Fourteen Years in the Interior of North America; Being a Full and Impartial Account of the Various Difficulties and Ultimate Success of an English Family who Emigrated from Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, in the Year 1831 (London: G. Berger, 1848), 33–43.

Mistrust of all that Popery does, or affects to do, whether as a friend or foe in any part of the country, is the only feeling that true charity, universal charity, allows us to indulge….

Hector St. Jean de Crèvecœur, Letters from an American Farmer (New York: 1904), 49-56.

Sir, I have long been convinced, that if your love for your Selves, and for those inestimable laws which preserve to you the rights of human nature, was founded on Sincerity, you could not but be Solicitous, that every Individual of whatsoever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof, neither could you rest Satisfied, short of the most active diffusion of your exertions, in order to their promotion from any State of degradation, to which the unjustifiable cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.

Available through the Massachusetts Historical Society

That lately was betray’d, And sent into Virginny O: In brief I shall declare, What I have suffered there, When that I was weary,

“The kings who have gone before, your representatives, guarded it and preserved it for your coming. The kings Itzcoatl, Montezuma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc and Ahuitzol ruled for you in the City of Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields.