The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union's available manpower. It was an important step towards abolishing slavery and conferring American citizenship upon ex-slaves, although the Proclamation did not actually outlaw slavery or free the slaves in the Union states that still permitted it. The Proclamation broadened the goals of the Union war effort; it made the eradication of slavery into an explicit Union goal, in addition to the reuniting of the country.
The Proclamation also prevented European forces from intervening in the war on behalf of the Confederacy. Because the Emancipation Proclamation made the abolition of slavery into a Union goal, it linked support for the Confederacy to support for slavery. As Lincoln hoped, the Proclamation swung foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union by gaining the support of European countries that had already outlawed slaver. It effectively ended the Confederacy's hopes of gaining official recognition from European heads of state.
This lesson demonstrates the importance of the immediate effects that the Emancipation Proclamation had on four major American groups: the Confederate states, the Union states, the Union Army, and black Americans.
Topics
Abolition
Civil War
Politics
Slavery
Big Ideas
US History
Essential Questions
How has social disagreement and collaboration been beneficial to American society?
What document or artifact best summarizes the United States and why?
Concepts
Textual evidence, material artifacts, the built environment, and historic sites are central to understanding United States history.
Conflict and cooperation among social groups, organizations, and nation-states are critical to comprehending society in the United States. Domestic instability, ethnic and racial relations, labor relations, immigration, and wars and revolutions are examples of social disagreement and collaboration.
Competencies
Analyze a primary source for accuracy and bias and connect it to a time and place in United States history.
Summarize how conflict and compromise in United States history impact contemporary society.
Background Material for Teacher
The Emancipation Proclamation at 150. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 137 (1).
Franklin, J.H. (1963). The Emancipation Proclamation. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
Guelzo, A.C. (2004). The Great Event of the Nineteenth Century : Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Treasures of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Legacies 4 (2), 20-23.
Holzer, H., Medford, E.G., & Williams, F.J. (2006). The Emancipation Proclamation : three views (social, political, iconographic). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
End of Unit Assessment
Students will perform an oral presentation of their assigned group's perspective to the rest of the class. Students will then use the historical arguments of all four groups to write a 1-2 page response, comparing and contrasting the effect that the Emancipation Proclamation had on each group.
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Click here for the text of this historical document.As early as 1849, Abraham Lincoln believed that slaves should be emancipated, advocating a program in which they would be freed gradually. Early in his presidency, still convinced that gradual emacipation was the best course, he tried to win over legistators. To gain support, he proposed that slaveowners be compensated for giving up their "property." Support was not forthcoming.In September of 1862, after the Union's victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary decree stating that, unless the rebellious states returned to the Union by January 1, freedom would be granted to slaves within those states. The decree also left room for a plan of compensated emancipation. No Confederate states took the offer, and on January 1 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared, "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared free only those slaves living in states not under Union control. William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, commented, "We show our symapthy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Lincoln was fully aware of the irony, but he did not want to antagonize the slave states loyal to the Union by setting their slaves free. The proclamation allowed black soldiers to fight for the Union -- soldiers that were desperately needed. It also tied the issue of slavery directly to the war.
Image Credit: Boston Athenaeum
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The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves in the Confederate States if the States did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863. In addition, under this proclamation, freedom would only come to the slaves if the Union won the war.
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"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.
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."
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 the 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, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, 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.
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.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.