Today I found (what I think is) an amazing quote from George Julian of Indiana, who was a Representative from the state of Indiana during the American Civil War…
“The Mere suppression of the rebellion will be an empty mockery of out suffering and sacrifices, if slavery shall be spared to canker the heart of the nation anew, and repeat its diabolical deeds.”
-Representative George Julian of Indiana, Quoted in The Americans 1998 Ed.
If only people spoke like this in Congress nowadays.
At the time that Julian said this, Abraham Lincoln had stated that though he disliked slavery, he did not really believe that the federal government had the consitiutional power to abolish it where it had already existed. Lincoln had not yet issued he Emancipation Proclamation.
“My Paramount object in this strugle i to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeig any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving other alone, I would also do that… I have here stated my purpose according to my view of offical duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expresed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free”
-Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Fifty Basic Civil War Documents
It is clear that Julian really understood that even if the North won the Civil War if it failed to end slavery, as an institution and an issue, it would only be a matter of ime before the free North and the slave states were at it again.
Smart guy, eh?
Tags: abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln, American, Civil War, Congress, Constitution, Emancipation Proclamation, federal government, George Julian, History, Indiana, Representative, slavery, state government