No president has ever faced more difficult decisions than Abraham Lincoln.  Two major choices that loomed especially large: the decision to fight over Fort Sumter and the decision to emancipate slaves.

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  author and historian Richard Schwartz's program.

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.

Need help with a National History Day (NHD) project?  The North Jersey Civil War Round Table is happy to help.  Learn more about the North Jersey Civil War Round Table at NJCWRT.