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Abraham Lincoln is important for two things. First, he established that the United States, the central government in Washington DC, has powers that are superior to the powers of the individual States whenever the United States chooses to exercise them. For better or for worse, that was the outcome of the U.S. Civil War. It got us a very powerful Federal goverment. Lincoln called himself a Republican but he was in fact one of the most committed Federalists every to hold the Presidency.

Up until 1860 there was a sense, supported by the language of the Constitution, that State's Rights were more or less equal to the rights of the U.S. government. Lincoln's all-out pursuit of war to prevent the southern states from forming their own Confederacy led to the virtual disappearance of State's Rights from Constitutional interpretation.

Second, in 1863 he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, actually two proclamations, which served as a prelude to the actual outlawing of slavery 2 years later. Outlawing slavery was a controversial move, even in much of the north. There was a vocal and politically powerful Abolitionist movement pushing for an end to slavery, but the majority of citizens were not committed to the cause; nor were the majority of Union troops. Despite revisionist claims to the contrary, the Civil War was not a war about freeing the slaves; the vast majority of officers and troops were focused strictly upon the preservation of the Union. Lincoln's support of emancipation and his popularity following Robert E Lee's surrender hastened the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 following his death.

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15y ago

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