Civil War Gradually About Slavery
- Lincoln’s beliefs and strategies on how to make the Civil War revolve around the issue of slavery were explained in his 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges.
- Lincoln acknowledged in this letter that although he was morally opposed to slavery, he could not make the Civil War about abolishing slavery until such time as he found a constitutional basis for freeing slaves.
- "I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation." - Lincoln to Hodges