Newly listed by our sponsor - "Lincoln's Gamble", by Todd Brewster - the truth behind the Emancipation Proclamation

On New Year's Day 1863, Abraham Lincoln (with William H. Seward, his Secretary of State) signed the Emancipation Proclamation, earning himself the soubriquet "The Great Emancipator", because he freed the slaves. 

So goes the hagiography. The truth is that the Proclamation didn't go nearly that far. It broadened the goals of the Union war effort. It made the eradication of slavery into an explicit Union goal, to be achieved not on that day but after the conclusion of hostilies. 

President Lincoln justified the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure intended to cripple the Confederacy and reunite the United States of America. Being mindful of possible challenges on the constitutionality of the Proclamation, the President applied it only to the Confederate states then in rebellion. 

Why President Lincoln issued the Proclamation, at the time he did, is the subject of Lincoln's Gamble, by Todd Brewster (Simon & Schuster, 2014), now available by mail from our dear sponsor's e-store, used, in very fine condition, at a great price.

Mr Brewster is a certified liberal journalist, having written for HuffPost and the NYT. But, as a professor of oral history at West Point, he has to admit that President Lincoln's motives were not altogether altruistic. Although he was no racist, he was a man of his times, recognizing the now politically unrecognizable, i.e. that there is a difference between the races. 

He thought it unlikely that the two races could live together in a harmonious society, and was an advocate, even as he signed the document, for the establishment of a black colony, in central America or Africa, to which freed blacks could be sent... if they wished, of course.

President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Declaration as a matter of military necessity. On New Year's Day of 1863, the Union was losing the war, and the tide of public opinion in the North was running against the President. He could think of no alternative but to roll the dice -- Mr Brewster's words -- and hope the freeing of the slaves (sort of) would bring would bring victory in its wake.

President Lincoln lived long enough to see the victory he hoped for, but not long enough to see the realization of his fears for the aftermath. This book will give you some food for thought, and fuel for debates with your friends, both liberal and conservative. If you buy it, tell `em Walt sent ya!