Abraham linkon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Abraham linkon - Essay Example As a result, he took an approach of preventing the spread of silvery into other territories and expected it to die a natural death without attacking it directly. On the contrary, Douglas believed that slavery as morally wrong, though he believed the people reserved the right to either observe it or not. For instance, Douglas believed that despite the Dread Scott Supreme Court ruling, municipalities had a duty not support legislations that supported slavery if they chose to. Settlers according to Douglas could also prevent slavery by not adopting the local legislations in such localities, which would have led to slavery being combated from a moral point of view despite the legislation permitting it. The controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was responsible for alienating the northerners, resulting in political turmoil and violence that largely ate into the democrat’s political power. Douglas advocated for a popular sovereignty approach in abolishing slavery in this region. To Douglas this was a deeply rooted in democracy and in the republic principles as envisaged by declaration of independence (Etcheson, 2008). On the contrary, to Lincoln, this was a subversion of the spirit of republicanism; he blamed Douglas for the chaos that led to a bleeding Kansas. Lincoln directly attacked the legitimacy of the sovereignty meaning as stated in the act. Lincoln took it as his lawful and constitutional obligation to uphold the law, prohibit slavery, and encourage the return of fugitives. On the contrary, Douglas opted to use the â€Å"let the people decide† approach to prevent angering the whites in including the free states into senate voting blocs (Etcheson, 2008). Tho ugh Douglas was trying to organize the northern territories, the southern politicians who were not interested to add more voters to the Free State block in the senate