Lincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery

William Lloyd Garrison

It was the Emancipation Proclamation that solved the problem in regard to which Lincoln had said less than ten years before, [if all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do]—the problem of the existing institution of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation marked a convergence of views on the part of abolitionists and Republicans that culminated in an exuberant tribute by William Lloyd Garrison, the most famous abolitionist of all, to [that noble man, Abraham Lincoln,] offered in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 14, 1865, the very day Lincoln would be shot. [Of one thing I feel sure,] Garrison declared, [either he has become a Garrisonian Abolitionist or I have become a Lincoln Emancipationist, for I know that we blend together, like kindred drops, into one, and his brave heart beats for human freedom everywhere.] Lincoln himself is reported to have made the following reply, eight days earlier, to a comment about [the country's gratitude for his great deliverance of the slaves]: [I have been only an instrument. The logic and moral power of Garrison, and the anti-slavery people of the country and the army, have done all.] The abolitionist whose motto was [No Union with Slaveholders!] and the president who had written, [What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I fore

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