Was George Washington an abolitionist

Answer 1

Yes, Lincoln believed slavery to be morally wrong and wanted to see it ended.

However, he knew it was and had been sanctioned by law, and he acknowledged the effect abolition would have on slave owners - his plan was to buy the owners out and achieve emancipation that way.

In the end the requirements of the US Civil War lead him to simply declare the emancipation.

Answer 2

No. Abraham Lincoln was in favor of a gradual emancipation that involved not removing slavery from the territories in which it already existed, but rather stopping its spread to other territories. When he became President, however, he freed the slaves in the rebelling states with the Emancipation Proclamation, and later supported the 13th Amendment that abolished all slavery in the U.S.
Yes! He stopped slavery during his presidency!

Answer 3

Yes, but only after he wrote in his will that his slaves would all go free after the death of his wife Martha, indicating that while immediate abolition of slavery was unrealistic in the United States, it was a moral wrong that needed to be addressed over the course of the life of the United States, and that the slaves needed time to be integrated as citizens of the United States, and on a voluntary basis of Southern slaveholders.

Answer 4

Lincoln was not what we would consider an activist today. In fact, in his day, he wasn't the people of the 1860s might even call an activist. He did issue the Emancipation Proclamation, but that was well into the Civil War... and not necessarily for the "freeing" of slaves.

The EP was a threat to cajole the Southern states into re-joining the Union. The EP only freed slaves in those states (not in the North), and did not outlaw slavery anywhere. Additionally, the freedmen were still not citizens of the US.

The Proclamation was not a "civil rights" decree. Though Lincoln did share some of the ideals of the "true" activists of that time, he passed no law that afforded the slaves/freedmen any rights under the Constitution -- and thus the EP was just a piece of paper that he thought might help him win the war.

Was he an activist? Probably not. Was he a good man? Almost assuredly.

Answer 5

Abraham Lincoln was indeed not an abolitionist. Although he signed the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War, the proclamation did not literally free the slaves. He used this to punish the Confederacy of their rebellion.

Answer 6

Not officially, but he held strong pro-abolition sentiments.

Answer 7

i believe he was