Reference no: EM133354681

Case Study: The question of "Who Freed the Slaves?" is not a simple one. The legendary image of Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator has some merit. He did issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 which started the legal process of ending slavery. Ultimately, by 1864, he did advocate for the passage of the 13th Amendment which would end slavery forever from the United States. Without Lincoln's advocacy and actions in the Civil War, slavery may not have ended as quickly or the way it did. But much credit should also go to the slaves themselves. Millions of slaves "voted with their feet" as soon as the war started. That means, whenever the Union army would enter a new part of the South, local slaves would escape and run to the "army of liberation." Even though army commanders were not instructed to free slaves, the slave communities forced the issue on the military, and ultimately the President, with their own brave actions and bodies. By the time of the Emancipation Proclamation (1/1/63) many slaves had freed themselves and were an important pressure on Lincoln to make their actions more formal and legal.
Few in the know today would argue that all the credit for ending slavery should go to Lincoln alone or the slaves alone. But what is your view? Should a little more credit go to Lincoln, go to the slaves themselves or a 50-50 split? Also, why do you think this question of who deserves credit for ending slavery is so important to discuss from a historical perspective today? Please explain your answers and be thoughtful and respectful in your comments.

Questions: What other examples, in history or in today's world, can you think of that resemble key features of the McCarthy Era? Features such as
- mainstream society fearing and exaggerating a threat
- scapegoating and targeting certain already-vulnerable groups in society
- applying the principle of "better be safe than sorry" by harming supected persons or groups in order to supposedly save the broader society
- encouraging some to name names and rat out others to save themselves from harm.
How are these examples similar and different than the McCarthy Era?