Hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s History. In these last videos we’ve been going through Unit 5 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. In the last video we talked about the fighting of the Civil War. In this video we’re going to talk about how the Union government conducted itself during the war. So if you’re ready to get them brain cows milked, let’s get to it. So in this video we’re going to try to answer the following question: How did Abraham Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War impact American ideals over the course of the war? Now this’ll be a short-ish video, because I covered about half of the content from this topic in the last video. Just by way of review, I talked about Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which in its text freed all enslaved people in the Confederacy. I called this more of a military tactic than a moral proclamation because while it’s true that the Emancipation Proclamation DID free SOME enslaved people, it didn’t free all of them. The Proclamation patently did NOT end slavery in the border states, which were slave states that remained in the Union, it only ended slavery in the COnfederate states, where the authority of that proclamation was not recognized. However, as a military strategy, it was a good one for two reasons. First, it effectively cut off all hope of European diplomatic support for the South, which was a huge part of their plan to win. When Lincoln recast the purpose of the war in these terms, it made Britain especially kinda twitchy about lending a hand to their cause on account of their abolition of slavery in 1833. Second, the Emancipation Proclamation created the occasion for many enslaved people in the South to escape their bondage into the safety of Union camps. Some of them even took up arms for the Union against their former enslavers. So that’s what the Emancipation Proclamation did. But there was another speech Lincoln gave that even further recast the purpose of the Civil War into a fight to end slavery, and that was the Gettysburg Address delivered on November 19th, 1863. In this address, which is one of the most magnificent speeches that ever proceeded from the lips of a human being, Lincoln sought to unify the nation and to portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of America’s founding democratic ideals. And here’s what’s astonishing about this speech. It was delivered at the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery, and Lincoln wasn’t even the main act. It was a guy named Edward Everett who was to give the main remarks, which lasted something like two hours. And you might be wondering, who is Edward Everett and do I need to know him for my test. And the answer is, NO! Nobody remembers that speech, despite the fact that it was actually quite good. It was Abraham Lincoln who stood up after him to dedicate the cemetery that reframed the entire course of the war in ten sentences that took him four minutes to deliver. And because I keep waxing romantic about how magnificent this speech was, and because it is so short, we just need to read it right here. Listen to how Lincoln reframes the meaning of the war and how he depicts the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of America’s foundational ideals. And hey, don’t skip this. Don’t do it. Just let this in and you will be well rewarded: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Oh, that’s a beautiful speech. And seeing as how it can only go downhill if I keep talking about it, we’ll end it there. your class and a five on your exam in May. I’ve got more videos here to help you in Unit 5. And if you were helped by this video and want me to keep making them, then that’s what the like button and the subscribe button are for. Heimler out.