North Jersey Civil War Round Table Presents “I Should Be Damned in Time and in Eternity:” Abraham Lincoln’s Most Difficult Decision

NORTH JERSEY CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE

“I Should Be Damned in Time and in Eternity”
Abraham Lincoln’s Most Difficult Decision

Presented by:

RICHARD SCHWARTZ, Author and Historian

No president has ever faced more difficult decisions than Abraham Lincoln. Sentries fell asleep and were condemned to death; their mothers asked for presidential pardons.  Boastful generals lost major battles and the public screamed for their scalps.  Cabinet officials created headaches in ever more creative ways.  Foreign powers sought to exploit the nation’s weakness.  The list went on and on.  Two choices loomed especially large: the decision to fight over Fort Sumter in April, 1861, and the decision to emancipate slaves in January, 1863.

Crucial to the decision was how would the slave holding border states react and would they now secede? How would the decision be understood in basically a racist society? Contrary to what many of us believe today, Abolitionism was basically reviled. How would this decision affect the upcoming 1864 Presidential election?

The toughest call of all may have happened in the summer of 1864, and that decision will be the focus of “’I Should Be Damned in Time and in Eternity’: The Black Soldier and Abraham Lincoln’s Most Difficult Decision.”

Richard Schwartz is a former high school history teacher.  He is the author of The Prairies on Fire: Lincoln Debates Douglas, 1858.  He writes the Substack newsletter Common Sentences. Ed. Note: Schwartz has presented Lincoln lectures before the NJCWRT several times, and I can state This is probably the best Lincoln lecture you will hear!  (How’s that for going out a limb?)

This program is presented as a public service by  the North Jersey Civil War Round Table.