ABRAHAM LINCOLN
the evolution of his thinking on race, slavery, and rights
On July 22, 1862, Lincoln showed a document to his cabinet that would become the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. In this document, Lincoln refers to the Second Confiscation Act, which allows the federal government to confiscate property of those committed treason; that property included enslaved people. The basis for the Emancipation Proclamation, was this act, which Lincoln had trouble with. As a man of the Constitution, Lincoln was unsure that Congress had the power to issue such an act. Instead of vetoing the bill, which he had been seriously considering, Lincoln wrote a veto message, which is now known as a Presidential Signing Statement, which expressed his concerns about the constitutionality of the bill. Here began Lincoln's path towards the Emancipation Proclamation issued on January 1, 1863.
Lincoln ultimately issues the Emancipation Proclamation as a tool to suppress the rebellion. In the proclamation, he states that this is a "military necessity" and only grants freedom to those enslaved in the rebelling states. Many are shocked to hear that the Emancipation Proclamation did not in effect "free all of the slaves", in fact it left all of the slaves in the border states in bondage. Emancipation was a tactic, just like colonization had been a tactic. When he realized that colonization was unrealistic and unpopular, he turned to emancipation as another way to suppress the rebellion.
documents leading to emancipation...
preliminary emancipation proclamation july 22, 1862
appeal to border-state representatives july 12, 1862
letter to horace greeley august 22, 1862
annual message to congress december 1, 1862
*all of the above are written by lincoln*
path to emancipation...
emancipation proclamation january 1, 1863
excerpt of the proclamation:
January 1, 1863
A Proclamation.
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, 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; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom...
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States...
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
first reading of the emancipation proclamation
historians on emancipation
manisha sinha "allies for emancipation"
"Black and white abolitionists, as both supporters and critics of the President, played a crucial part in leading the movement for emancipation. Abolitionists enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House during Lincoln’s presidency. Lincoln’s famous ability to listen to all sides of the story may not have served abolitionists well when it came to border state slaveholders and Northern conservatives, but it did bode well for their own role as the staunchest supporters of emancipation. Not only did black abolitionists strenuously advocate the cause of the slave, they also made the President give up on his long-cherished plan of colonizing free blacks outside the country and to contemplate civil and political rights including suffrage for African Americans. Abolitionist influence on Lincoln must be gauged in terms of ideology and philosophy. In their view, the Civil War was a revolutionary struggle against slavery, not, as Lincoln argued early on, just a war for the Union, but an abolition war, a position that he came to accept in the last years of the war....
Abolitionists realized that Lincoln’s presidency and the war presented them with a golden opportunity to make their case for emancipation anew. During the Civil War, the long-reviled abolition movement gained new respectability in the eyes of the Northern public...
On January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he had come to abolitionist ground. For abolitionists, the President would become permanently identified with the moment of liberation, living on as an icon of black freedom in African American celebrations of emancipation in years to come. By this time, Lincoln came to share the abolitionist and African American view of the Civil War as a providential, apocalyptic event that would not only end slavery but also redeem the American republic and its founding principles."
eric foner the fiery trial
In fact, however, the Emancipation Proclamation was as much a political as a military document. Attorney General Bates had cautioned Lincoln that its provisions about which areas were or were not in rebellion “must be truly declared.” Yet Lincoln’s decision to exempt parts of the Confederacy reflected not only the actual military situation but also his judgment about the prospects for winning over white support. Even the Unionists who pleaded with Lincoln to exempt all of Tennessee acknowledged that large portions of the state remained “in possession of the rebel army.” But in order to bolster Andrew Johnson’s regime and attract cooperation from slave-holders, Lincoln acceded to their wish. In the process, for the time being, the interests of Tennessee’s slaves.
lerone bennett forced into glory
A growing body of evidence suggests that the Emancipation Proclamation was a ploy designed not to emancipate the slaves but to keep as many slaves as possible in slavery until Lincoln could mobilize support for his conservative plan to free Blacks gradually and to ship them out of the country. What Lincoln was trying to do, then, from our standpoint, was to outmaneuver the real emancipators and to contain the emancipation tide, which had reached such a dangerous intensity that it threatened his ability to govern and to run the war machinery.