On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The document declared “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The Emancipation Proclamation is only a few words over 700 but the small section above directly states Lincoln’s intent. It means all slaves, living in areas in rebellion against the federal government, were declared free and included states that had seceded from the Union. It changed to course of the Civil War and was the beginning of the end of slavery in the United States. (Armentrout 2005) On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln read …show more content…
It only applied to states that seceded from the Union, which left slavery in bordering states. It also exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. The most crucial was that the entire proclamation depended completely on the Union military’s victory. The proclamation did transform the character of the war though. Every advancement of the Union expanded the domain of freedom. More importantly, it accepted black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. (National Archives and Records Administration …show more content…
In the North, some of the white people assumed that the whole reason the Civil War was being fought was to free the slaves while others believed it rationalized the bloodiest conflict in United States history. Many abolitionists and African-American reformers thought that the Emancipation Proclamation was not just a one-time event but a process that continue until all African Americans were treated equally. Many southern white people drew upon the antebellum racial stereotype and asserted that blacks were not suited to liberty and the Emancipation Proclamation had failed. (Abolition Seminar
The Emancipation Proclamation allowed black soldiers to enlist in the Union army, which abolitionists
Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, his Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, is about the real truth behind Abraham Lincoln and his actual agenda during his involvement in the upcoming America. The Real Lincoln “contains irrefutable evidence that a more appropriate title for Abraham Lincoln is not the Great Emancipator, but the Great Centralizer.” (xiii). DiLorenzo’s book examines the effects of Abraham Lincoln’s real intentions pertaining to political and economic purposes. In addition, the book also focuses on his true intentions toward slavery as well.
The Proclamation gives a “limited role for black soldiers ‘to garrison forts, positions, stations and other places’” limiting uses on the front lines, yet this was not the case in practice (McPherson, 564). Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation created a new purpose and objective for the Union. Prior to the Proclamation the Union focused on the protection and preservation of the Union. The Proclamation turned “Union forces into armies of liberation” and freedom of slaves (McPherson, 558). Consequentially, European support began to shift.
For the people who were against slavery, they wanted for all men to be treated equally and have freedom. During the war, African Americans could not fight for this cause due to individuals who discriminated them based on the color of their skin. Until January of 1863, President Lincoln signed and put the Emancipation Proclamation into order. This order stated “that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states, are, and henceforward shall be free” (National Archives). This order freed a few people but naturally the states in rebellion did not act on President Lincoln's orders.
The Emancipation Proclamation officially granted freedom to slaves in rebellious states once, and if only, recaptured on January 1, 1863. Lincoln used the Emancipation Proclamation as a war tactic to suppress the Confederacy and ensure border state loyalty. Lincoln’s concern of losing key border states, hindered full and immediate abolition in the Union. Lincoln restrained from emancipation because of its constitution right, but progression into the second year of war opted for change. If the Confederacy did not surrender by New Year’s Day and the Union won the war, then no opposition would be met against the proclamation.
Thus came the Emancipation Proclamation to states in the Confederacy not occupied by federal forces, since under the Constitution he could only free slaves in places that claimed to be “outside” the United
For example, one major limitation was that it only provided freedom for slaves in the Southern states, although the Border States and Union States were excluded. For example, the Border States of Tennessee was excluded from the order because it was already under Union Control at the time and was not in rebellion. As mentioned earlier, t it further divided the country into people who supported the freedom of the slave’s verses those who did not. In the Proclamation it allowed African American’s to join the army. This was a major development for the Union Army, because they now had more troops to help fight the Confederacy, which led to the development of the United States Colored Troops.
On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in the rebellious Confederate states. Lincoln believed this decree would help the Union by helping the slaves. Lincoln said, “We know how to save the union. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.
Whether or not this classification of the Emancipation Proclamation accurately defined one of Lincoln’s main objectives for the proclamation, or merely was to provide constitutional justification for the proclamation, there is no denying the effectiveness of the proclamation in weakening the south. Upon the activation of the proclamation on January 1st 1863, the result of the proclamation was extremely prevalent. The south went absolutely haywire as slaves fled their respective plantations to head north, newly invigorated at the prospect of legal freedom, leaving empty and unmanned plantations in their wake. In many places in the south, slave labor was the thing that allowed free white men to take up arms and go to war against the Union, however, without the slave labor keeping the farms running back home, many of those free white men had to return home to assess and/or replace the void of labor that the slaves had left behind in their flight. As General-in-Chief Henry Halleck explained, “Every slave withdrawn from the enemy is the equivalent of a white man put hours de combat.”
It made it clear that "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. " It was only the border states and the areas of slave states already under Union control aren’t under control of the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation made is so people of color could be apart of the armed forces and eliminated slavery in the war and in some
During the Civil War, Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all the slaves to be free. Some of the pressures Lincoln was under when he passed the Emancipation Proclamation were the Confederacy and the Union. The Confederacy was for slavery and the Union was against slavery. According to many documents and research, I believe that Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation for moral reasons. Lincoln was a very religious man, and that influenced his morals.
This Proclamation removed the Confederate’s strongest form of production and disarmed a large amount of their army. During the Civil War, the South’s economy was based off of slavery, primarily, so taking away many slaves had a great effect on the economy. In a letter to President Lincoln, sent in August 1863, Confederate general Ulysses S. Grant observed that the Proclamation, combined with the usage of black soldiers by the U.S. Army, profoundly angered the Confederacy, saying that “the emancipation of the Negro, is the heaviest blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a great deal about it and profess to be very angry.” Thus, no compromise was made and the Union and Confederacy went to
By the end of the war, more than 500,000 slaves had absconded to the opportunity of freedom beyond the Northern lines. The former slaves could join the Union Army and the Navy (Holzer). From those 500,000 laborers, 200,000 black soldiers and circumnavigators, a multitude of them were former veterans, served in the armed forces (Holzer). The North now had more strategies and more tactics. The discharged captives could also barricade forts, positions, stations, and other locations, and to other man bateaus ("Emancipation Proclamation."
Before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, the idea of freeing the slaves was a controversial topic between states. It was decided through an election in 1860, in which the electoral majority favors the freedom of slaves. Ultimately, it led to conflict between states and into the Civil War. During the Civil War, Lincoln primary goal was to preserve union and peace at first. However, later on
Over hundreds of years America has had many presidents, some able to complete the tasks at hand, but many were not worthy of leading this nation. President Abraham Lincoln was one of the few who led the United States of America with great strength and courage. Abraham Lincoln was the best U.S. president because he had a great impact on ending slavery and he was one of the greatest natural strategists and leaders of all time. Abraham Lincoln is considered to be America 's wisest president. Abraham Lincoln, "proved to be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader during what became the costliest conflict ever fought on American soil."