The Emancipation Proclamation is perhaps the most misunderstood document that has shaped American history. Contradictory to the legend, Abraham Lincoln did not simply free four million slaves with a stroke of his pen. The proclamation barely ensured the eventual death of slavery, the matter left as a possibility - assuming the Union won the war. In reality, the Emancipation Proclamation was no more than an act of propaganda, issued for the purpose of weakening the Confederacy and assuring Union victory. July 1862, Congress established 2 laws based on the premise of weakening the Confederacy. The first was a confiscation act that freed slaves of people who had engaged in rebellion against the U.S. The second a militia act that empowered the …show more content…
With the declaration of this document, the Union first and foremost won a great deal of fighters for their cause. As mentioned earlier, the North acquired nearly 200,000 soldiers for their army when Southern slaves were emancipated, 190,000 those of who fought in the Union army and 10,000 in the navy. This addition of freed slaves was major factor for the North winning the Civil War. Furthermore, with many Northerners drifting towards Abolitionist thinking, the Union gained a stronger moral position in an international perspective. The British, for example, were pro-South but anti-slavery, and up until the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation nearly acknowledged the Confederacy as its own nation. As Lincoln had hoped, the Proclamation turned foreign perspective in favor of the Union by gaining the support of anti-slavery countries. The last contribution the supposed emancipation of slaves made to the North was that the slaves in the North were in fact not emancipated at all. The crucial wording of the proclamation indicated that only slaves residing in rebellious states would be freed from that day forth. Slaveholding border states such as Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware were exempted from surrendering their human property. These slaves, who were living on the “good” side of the U.S., would be required to wait until April 8, 1864, the passing of the 13th Amendment. The Proclamation, in the end, did not compensate slave owners, did not outlaw slavery, and did not grant citizenship to former slaves. It established the eradication of slavery as a war goal, nothing
In this Document, President Lincoln declared that all slaves in rebellion states were to be “forever free” at the issued date of the document. Although this Document did not in fact free most slaves , it was considered to be one of the most important turning points of the war, and it had preserved the fight for freedom in the nation at the time. When the Emancipation Proclamation had taken its effect, a couple million salves were freed. Lincoln, at first, had no stance on Slavery, mostly at the beginning of his term, however that had changed, and when this document was issued, it was clear that President Lincoln was not in favor of slavery. However, slavery still existed in the South (Confederate States) until there was a victor, and in this
The most controversial document in Abraham Lincoln’s presidency was the Emancipation Proclamation. It was met with both hostility and jubilation by the North. The proclamation declares that everybody that was held as slaves within the rebellious states,the southern states in rebellion, were going to be free. Most people do not know that it was written twice.
It’s was considered as the act of justice by the Constitution. The Proclamation is also recruited free blacks to join the Union army. For the next few years, thousands of freed slaves and free blacks fought in the Union Army and Navy. Emancipation later became a war for a new birth of Freedom. Lincoln stated after Gettysburg
This did not change overnight, and people who were loyal to the Union still kept their slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation had a strong impact on the war and caused the government to say that slavery was wrong. In the North, some people disagreed with the document, but mainly everyone supported it. This ruined the economy in the South, causing some people in the army to flee the war and go back home to support their
This proclamation stated that all people held as slaves, in the rebellious states, are and will be free. This was written after about 3 years of fighting in the civil war. The confederates in the south didn’t want to give up the privilege
While the Emancipation Proclamation did not have much of an actual effect, it stood for a deep symbolic importance. The war's moral purpose changed as it went to fighting for the freedom of slaves, due to the Proclamation. Freed blacks supported the Proclamation because they could now join the Union army to fight and help put a end to slavery which benefited Lincoln. The Democrats argued that it would cause the war to be much more worst and last longer because it would anger the South. Although Union soldiers did not have much concern for African Americans or abolitionists, they also supported the Proclamation since they believed it was the way to reunite the nation.
The Emancipation Proclamation was declared on january 1, 1863 by the president of united states. This move by the President declared 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 actually intended for the most of the people that would free the slaves, not to the slaves itself. This speech took place during the Antislavery movement in 1960’s. The main leaders during this Antislavery movement were Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglas.
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.”
As the Battle of Antietam closed on September 17, the Union victory made significant ground, which allowed for President Lincoln to release the Emancipation Proclamation with meaning. Warranted by the Constitution and military necessity, the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the states participating in rebellion, ultimately diminishing Southern morale and production. The Emancipation Proclamation reads, “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is a very legalistic document, deriving its foundation from the law itself. In a letter to O.H. Browning, Lincoln explained what the document did not allow, “it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a big turning point in the history of America. It started the transformation of slavery to freedom for all people. It may not have been a fast change, but you need to start somewhere, and the Emancipation Proclamation was that somewhere. During the 1800’s, there was a huge war fighting for the freedom of slaves.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States which he served from 1861 until his assassination on April 15, 1865.Lincoln was the nation’s greatest president (Notes, Rosalski). He was born in Hodgenville Kentucky on February 12, 1809. Lincoln and his family moved to a farm in Indiana where he spent most of his childhood there. He attended school for less than a year and gained most of his education from reading books. In 1828 and 1831 Abraham Lincoln took trips down the Mississippi River to take food to New Orleans.
The Emancipation Proclamation also ordered that suitable people among those freed could now be enrolled into paid service of United States ' forces, and ordered the Union Army to "recognize and maintain the freedom of" the former slaves. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners in any way, did not make slavery illegal and did not grant any citizenship to the former slaves. It only made the eradication of slavery an explicit war goal as an addition to the goal of reuniting the Union. Around 20,000 to 50,000 slaves in the southern regions where the rebellion already had been subdued were immediately emancipated. The proclamation could not be enforced in the areas still under rebellion, but when the Union Army took control of Confederate regions, The Proclamation provided the legal support framework for freeing about more than 3 million slaves in those southern regions.
Upon reading the text of the Emancipation Proclamation, it becomes clear that the purpose of this document was not to abolish slavery in the United States-or at least this was not the immediate or primary goal. It states 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…forever free" (The Emancipation Proclamation). However, it takes no action against slavery in the border states, including Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri, where a true impact could have been made. Because the Confederacy no longer abided by U.S. law and the Union army was not in the position to enforce it, the
On September 2nd, 1862, Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation. After that, there’s been much debate on whether Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation truly played a role in freeing the slaves with many arguments opposing or favoring this issue. In Vincent Harding’s essay, The Blood-red Ironies of God, Harding argues in his thesis that Lincoln did not help to emancipate the slaves but that rather the slaves “self-emancipated” themselves through the war. On the opposition, Allen C Guelzo ’s essay, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, argues in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and Guelzo acknowledges Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation.