US History AP
Outside Reading #3
Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation (POA)
Name: ____________________________________
Period: _________
1.
Most of us are familiar with the story of “Honest Abe” Lincoln, the unambitious rail-splitting man of the
people. How does Oates’ biographical portrait of Lincoln reveal the complex human being behind this mythical
image? ___________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
2.
How was Lincoln able to reconcile his reverence for the founders and the Constitution with the moral
paradox of slavery in a free society? ______________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
3.
How did Lincoln hope to solve the problems of slavery and racial adjustment in America?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
4.
What was the so-called slave power conspiracy that Lincoln and many other Republicans feared in the late
1850s? ____________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
5.
How had the events of that crucial decade seemed to confirm their fears? _________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
6.
Oats says that the pressures and problems of fighting a civil war finally caused Lincoln to hurl an executive
fist at slavery. What were the forces that led Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation? _______________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
7.
Many of Lincoln’s contemporaries as well as later scholars accused Lincoln of having made an empty
gesture with the Emancipation Proclamation. How does Oates answer these accusations? ___________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________