Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution

	In 1862, The Battle of Shiloh exceeded the number of casualties of the total dead and wounded during the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War combined with nearly 25,000 casualties.  The Civil War was the deadliest war America had yet seen up to that time.  The war was brought upon the day of President Abraham LincolnÕs inauguration into office.  In James McPhersonÕs book, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, McPherson attempts to reveal whether President Lincoln was a more conservative or revolutionary president as he unfolds the points of the Civil WarÕs complicated course.  Thus, McPherson perceives the Civil War through three distinct perspectives, the Civil War as a revolution or possible second American Revolution,  President Lincoln as a Òrevolutionary statesman,Ó and how the war changed American life both politically, economically, and domestically.
	In his foremost point, McPherson attempts to determine whether the war was a revolution, or actually a counter-revolution.  To justify their cause of secession, South Carolina and the other seceding states declared their uprising a counter revolution in response to the UnionÕs attempt to violate their rights.  Mainly, they felt their right to own slaves (property), was being threatened by abolitionists and Republicans in the North.  However, the North viewed their declaration of the Confederate States, as secession.  Northern sentiments felt that their secession was actually a struggle for slavery.  Ultimately, the South proclaimed their movement a counter revolution  in order to prevent a revolution on the issue of slavery.    Furthermore, President Lincoln viewed the southern secession to be neither a revolution, nor counter revolution, but a wicked exercise.  Lincoln claimed that the South had actually seceded as a response to his victory in the Elections of 1860.  Through secession, Lincoln felt that the south was not upholding the beliefs of the nationÕs forefathers, but actually destroying their experiment of a democratic government.
	In addition, McPherson continued on to discuss whether the war was a revolution to abolish slavery.  President Lincoln opposed slavery, yet he did not enter the Civil War as a struggle to abolish slavery, but rather as an attempt to keep the Union together.  Lincoln knew that a victory in the Elections of 1860 must require the support of the four proslavery border states.  Furthermore, almost half of the nationÕs voters were Democrats.  Yet as the war continued on, Lincoln was pressed into turning the cause of the war from a war for the Union into a war to abolish slavery because slave labor bolstered the Confederate cause.  In addition, sagging morale in the North needed the uplift of a transcendent moral cause to fight.  And most importantly, public opinion was swinging towards emancipation.  Thus Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 and then passed the Thirteenth Amendment.  Despite, the unpopular initial reactions of many, the Emancipation Proclamation led black freedmen to join the war effort in an a revolutionary struggle for their own freedom.
	The final point of the Civil War discussed by McPherson addresses how the war changed the national government and life in America.  Ultimately the Civil War abolished slavery, and along with it, the entire social and political structure of the South.  The South had based nearly all aspects of their life upon slavery, it was not slavery to them, but a part of life.  Politically, the South lost itÕs dominance in the government and the power shifted to the Republican party.  As a result, the Republicans were able to pass acts supporting the trade tariff, internal improvements, education, the national bank, and a federal currency, all of which the Democratic party opposed.  Economically, their plantation based society lost itÕs essential source of cheap, free, forced labor.  In addition, the paths of destruction lead by Generals Sherman and Sheridan ruined the southern agricultural plantation based economy, which lead to the industrious rise of Northern capitalism.
	In Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, McPherson concluded that the Civil War was ultimately a revolution led by a leader both conservative and revolutionary.  The war was began as a southern counter revolution in attempt to preserve their rights (primarily slavery), yet Lincoln shifted the Northern cause of war from a war for the union into a revolutionary struggle for abolitionism.  Ultimately, the Civil War can be perceived as a national revolution because it brought upon changes in American politics, economy, and everyday domestic life, setting America down the road for a whole new American age.