At its start, the Civil War was not fought as a war to free the slaves, but rather as a war to maintain the Union. In 1861, a war waged by the U.S. government to free the slaves, as Lincoln recognized, would have been very unpopular in the north and clearly unconstitutional. It was not until 1863, and then only as a war measure not a change in the Constitution, did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation and thereby begin a move toward the destruction of constitutionally sanctioned slavery. This move would have been terminated at Appomattox if the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments had not been adopted by the Congress and the states.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "At its start, the Civil War was not fought as a war to free the slaves, but rather as a war to maintain the Union. In 1861, a war waged by the U.S. government to free the slaves, as Lincoln recognized, would have been very unpopular in the north and clearly unconstitutional. It was not until 1863, and then only as a war measure not a change in the Constitution, did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation and thereby begin a move toward the destruction of constitutionally sanctioned slavery. This move would have been terminated at Appomattox if the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments had not been adopted by the Congress and the states." in the context of "Michael Scheuer, as quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention (22 June 2015), by M. Scheuer" to mean that wisdom is timeless.