Sir, – I refer to Breda O’Brien’s column “Republican Party needs to do more than oppose abortion” (Opinion & Analysis, July 2nd).
She is quite correct in describing Lincoln as a moderate in the anti-slavery camp. Unlike his more radical associates, he did not seek the immediate, outright abolition of slavery throughout the United States. But nor was he prepared to leave the issue to be decided by each individual state. His position was that, as the US expanded westward, no new state admitted to the Union should be slave-owning.
Slavery could, however, continue in the states in which it was already established.
And when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it applied only to slaves in those states that had joined the Confederacy.
Slaves in the slave-owning states that hadn’t joined the Confederacy – Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri – were not freed.
Lincoln’s policy on slavery is not, therefore, a precedent for the US Supreme Court’s decision to repeal Roe v Wade and return the question of abortion to the states.
There is no line of descent from Lincoln to Alito et al. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.