He also faced a military threat from Britain and France, the world's two superpowers at the time, both of which were siding with the insurrection.
Up until the war the North and South had operated on very different economic systems. Southern agriculturist states saw themselves as being controlled and used by the Northern industrialist states. They grew and harvested cotton only for it to be shipped to the North, woven into cloth and sold at a profit. The North also imposed taxes on the South, which they felt was unfair. The South were constantly threatening war as a result. Lincoln challenged the whole system by basically calling the South's bluff; destroying their arrogance and desire to break away, which was something America needed. However it took a bloody civil war that engulfed the nation as Lincoln vowed to preserve the Union, enforce the laws of the United States, and end the secession. The war lasted for more than four years with a staggering loss of over 600,000 lives. More Americans died in the Civil War than in all other wars America has fought in combined. It came very close to destroying the American government and culture for good, yet it also saved the country. .
Midway through the war, January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves within the Confederacy and changed the war from a battle to preserve the Union into a battle for freedom. Although this did not free all slaves in the nation, in the loyal slave states of Missouri, Maryland, and Kentucky, slaves continued to be slaves until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, it was an important symbolic gesture that identified the Union with freedom and the death of slavery. As part of the Proclamation, Lincoln also urged black males to join the Union forces as soldiers and sailors. By the end of the war, nearly 200,000 African Americans had fought for the Union cause, and Lincoln referred to them as indispensable in ensuring Union victory.
