African Americans and the vote 2020: Events Leading Toward

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Lee Mathews
  • 341st Civil Engineer Squadron
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. --  On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of Jan. 1, 1863, all slaves in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union shall be then, thenceforward and forever free.

“I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist and I consider it immoral,” The Great Emancipator once said. “If a negro is a man, then my ancient faith teaches me that all men are created equal; and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.”

When we think of the Civil War in 1865, there are two general schools of thought regarding the principal cause of the war.

The first, and most prominent, especially from the Northern perspective, is slavery was the primary cause of the war.

The second, from the Southern perspective, is the war was over the reach of the federal government into the rights of the individual states.

The reality is there were many factors that contributed to the failure of diplomacy resulting in bloodshed and hardship on a scale never before seen by this nation.

The North fought for preservation of the Union as well as to free the slaves.

Likewise, the reality is the majority of the State's Rights fought for by the South revolved around the "peculiar institution" of slavery, especially as property.