Emancipation Proclamation

Issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, declaring all "slaves within any State, or designated part of a State ... then ... in rebellion, ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

On Jan. 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on the Union side; nor did it affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Naturally, the states in rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation did show Americans--and the world--that the Civil War was now being fought to end slavery.

The states affected were enumerated in the proclamation; specifically exempted were slaves in parts of the South then held by Union armies. Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation marked a radical change in his policy; historians regard it as one of the great state documents of the United States.

Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. He initially viewed the war only in terms of preserving the Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, however, Lincoln became more sympathetic to the idea. On Sept. 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would become effective on Jan. 1, 1863, in those states still in rebellion.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, the slavery issue was made acute by the flight to Union lines of large numbers of slaves who volunteered to fight for their freedom and that of their fellow slaves. In these circumstances, a strict application of established policy would have required return of fugitive slaves to their Confederate masters and would have alienated the staunchest supporters of the Union cause in the North and abroad.

Lincoln and his Cabinet ~ July 22, 1862

Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves, and public opinion seemed to support this view. Lincoln moved slowly and cautiously nonetheless; on March 13, 1862, the federal government forbade all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus annulling in effect the fugitive slave laws. On April 10, on Lincoln's initiative, Congress declared the federal government would compensate slave owners who freed their slaves. All slaves in the District of Columbia were freed in this way on April 16, 1862. On June 19, 1862, Congress enacted a measure prohibiting slavery in United States territories, thus defying the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, which ruled that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in the territories.

Finally, after the Union victory in the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, declaring his intention of promulgating another proclamation in 100 days, freeing the slaves in the states deemed in rebellion at that time. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, conferring liberty on about 3,120,000 slaves. With the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in effect in 1865, slavery was completely abolished.

Lincoln writing the Proclamation of Freedom

The results of the Emancipation Proclamation were far-reaching. From then on, sympathy with the Confederacy was identified with support of slavery. Antislavery sentiment in France and Britain, whose governments were friendly to the Confederacy, became so strong that it precluded the possibility of intervention by those governments in behalf of the Confederacy. As a further result of the proclamation, the Republican party became unified in principle and in organization, and the prestige it attained enabled it to hold power until 1884.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America, it did make that accomplishment a basic war goal and a virtual certainty.

(See Bibliography below)

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Bibliography: Bergman, Peter M. The Chronological History of the Negro in America. (1969); Commager, Henry Steele, The Great Proclamation (1960); Donovan, Frank, Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation (1964); Ducas, George and Van Doren, Charles, eds., Great Documents in Black American History. (1970); Foner, Eric, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983); Franklin, John Hope, ed., The Emancipation Proclamation (1964); Litwack, Leon F., Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. (1979, 1980).

Picture Captions: (1) Abraham Lincoln, seated next to table, surrounded by members of his Cabinet, July 22, 1862.
Engraved by A.H. Ritchie (Library of Congress). (2) President Lincoln, writing the Proclamation of Freedom; painted by David Gilmour Blythe (Library of Congress).**

**Notes: A print based on David Gilmour Blythe's fanciful painting of Lincoln writing the Emancipation Proclamation. In a cluttered study Lincoln sits in shirtsleeves and slippers, at work on the document near an open window. His left hand is placed on a Bible that rests on a copy of the Constitution in his lap. The scene is crammed with symbolic details and other meaningful references. A bust of Lincoln's strongly Unionist predecessor Andrew Jackson sits on a mantlepiece near the window at Lincoln's right. A bust of another former President, James Buchanan, who was widely viewed as ineffectual against secessionism, hangs by a rope around its neck from a bookcase behind Lincoln. The scales of justice appear in the left corner, and a railsplitter's maul lies on the floor at Lincoln's feet.