![Free but Not Equal: The Midwest and the Negro During the Civil War ...](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1Mqrgz44qL.jpg)
By capturing, confiscating and conscripting black men for his war effort, Lincoln greatly succeeded where earlier British emancipation efforts to thwart American independence failed. Had Cornwallis won victory at Yorktown, would George III and Parliament have hung Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Henry and the rest of American leadership, and rewarded black slaves with political rights and the land of rebels?
Lincoln was certainly appreciative of the black military labor gained
from captured Southern territory, and depriving the South of
agricultural workers which was the primary target of earlier British
emancipation efforts in 1775 and 1814. At the same time Lincoln had to
face political reality once the Southern armies and leadership were
dispensed with, and the votes of his freedmen were required to insure
permanent Republican party hegemony.
More @ Circa 1865
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