Lincoln’s Plan for Peace
President Abraham Lincoln spent his first term in office trying to end the Civil War (1861–1865). He ran for reelection in 1864 hoping to spend a second term healing the nation. He was deeply concerned about finding a way forward that everyone—Black, white, Northerner, and Southerner—thought was fair. He also wanted to make the country strong and to attract Southern voters to his Republican party so that it would remain powerful after the war.
During the war, Lincoln came to believe that slavery was the main
