On this date, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It set the date for freedom for more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery. Unfortunately, it only freed the slaves of the rebellious south.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, shortly after Lincoln's inauguration as America's 16th president, he maintained that the war was about restoring the Union and not about slavery. He avoided issuing an anti-slavery proclamation immediately, despite the urgings of abolitionists and his personal belief that slavery was morally wrong. Lincoln chose to move cautiously.
Following a union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. On September 22, the president announced that slaves in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be free.
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, which declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebel states "are, and henceforward shall be free." The proclamation also called for the recruitment and establishment of black military units among the Union forces. An estimated 180,000 African Americans went on to serve in the army, while another 18,000 served in the navy.
After the Emancipation Proclamation, backing the Confederacy was seen as favoring slavery. It became impossible for anti-slavery nations such as Great Britain and France, who had been friendly to the Confederacy, to get involved on behalf of the South because they had already outlawed slavery. The proclamation also unified and strengthened Lincoln's party, the Republicans, helping them stay in power for the next two decades.
The proclamation was a presidential order and not a law passed by Congress, so Lincoln then pushed for an antislavery amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ensure its permanence. With the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, slavery was eliminated throughout America.
Lincoln's handwritten draft of the final Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871. Today, the original official version of the document is housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
3 comments:
Once again, you've given us some wonderful history, Jamie. I know how much research you put into these posts, and want you to know how fascinating I find them! I didn't realize that this proclamation influenced Great Britain and France!
Thank you, Jamie, for a great post about my very favorite President - a man who had strong convictions and beliefs and who wasn't afraid to share them especially during such a volatile time as the Civil War.
What a shame that the original proclamation was lost in the fire, I did not know that.
I had forgotten that the proclamation only declared freedom for slaves in the southern states who were fighting against the Union. Thanks for that important historical reminder.
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