Picking up where we left off in Part 1 — Lincoln at the start of the Civil War (and mainly throughout) was having a rough time managing the crisis. A lack of enthusiasm to fight and aggressive-minded generals, as well as a suspension of habeas corpus put him on an uneasy path in trying to win re-election. While his administration had mostly solved the nation’s financial crisis, they suffered heavy losses on the battlefields with little progress to show for it. Until 1863, the country looked like it was on a path to becoming permanently split.

That all changed with Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation — for the first time, all black men were given freedom in all rebel states, which further weakened the south as more former slavers escaped and made their way north. Lincoln’s Proclamation completely turned around the war effort and gave it a deeper meaning that finally more closely aligned the nation’s founding principles of civil liberties for all people with what it was now fighting for.

The problem that we have with Lincoln though, is that emancipation and the 13th amendment, his signature achievements, never were ambitions of his. Instead, they became convenient policy choices only after he tried to appease southern slaveholders for years. Jusef and Niel discuss if Lincoln should be celebrated as much as he still is today, as well as reaffirm what has become clear from them now studying almost all of the American Presidents — they all are deeply deeply flawed, and arguably more so if they have a greater legacy.

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