To what extent was Abraham Lincoln's conduct of the war an exercise in political management?

What will be an ideal response?


ANSWER: Students should recognize the competing demands placed upon Lincoln. Lincoln's task was to keep loyal elements working together. If he pushed too hard against slavery, he risked antagonizing Democrats, whose support he needed. On the other hand, radicals grew increasingly frustrated over Lincoln's reluctance to attack southern institutions. Most students will note the role of political generals whom Lincoln appointed to keep key constituencies happy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was itself a political document that appealed to key groups while angering others.

History

You might also like to view...

In her path-breaking text The Second Sex, the influential French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir argued that

A) women should renounce all contact with men and set up their own self-governing communes. B) women were always and wrongly defined by their differences from men and consequently seen as second-class beings. C) the Second World War had legitimated the political advantages and hegemonic power of males. D) a "sexual revolution" was impossible and discouraged women outside of France from taking up her ideas. E) there was absolutely no hope in improving the status of women in the near future.

History

The Council of ____ in 1409 deposed the two rival popes

a. Milan b. Florence c. Pisa d. Constance e. Rome

History

In the 1930s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations

A. would not accept women or blacks as members. B. confined its organizing to the steel and coal industries. C. refused to get involved in organizing the automobile industry. D. grew out of a dispute within the American Federation of Labor. E. was less militant than the American Federation of Labor.

History

Which character in Uncle Tom's Cabin transformed the slavery question from an abstract political issue into a personal tragedy?

A) Simon Legree B) Eliza Harris C) Willie D) Uncle Tom

History