Emancipation Proclamation

Executive order by US President Abraham Lincoln freeing slaves in the South

This article is about United States history. For emancipation proclamations in other countries, see Abolition of slavery timeline.

Emancipation ProclamationProclamation 95—Regarding the Status of Slaves in States Engaged in Rebellion Against the United States

Emancipation: The Past and the Future (Thomas Nast, 1863)

The five-page original document, held in the National Archives Building – until 1936 it had been bound with other proclamations in a large volume held by the Department of State.[1]

Type| Presidential proclamation
President| Abraham Lincoln
Signed| September 22, 1862
Federal Register details
Publication date| January 1, 1863
Summary
During the American Civil War, enslaved people in the Confederate States of America declared "free".
Part of a series on

Forced labour and slavery

Contemporary

* Child labour
* Child soldiers
* Conscription
* CSEC
* Debt bondage
* India
* Forced marriage
* Bride buying
* Child marriage
* Wife selling
* Forced prostitution
* Human trafficking
* Child
* China
* Cybersex
* Europe
* Fraud factory
* India
* United States
* Involuntary servitude
* ... in 21st-century jihadism
* ... in Africa
* Peonage
* Penal labour
* Sex trafficking
* China
* Europe
* United States
* Sexual slavery
* Wage slavery

Historical

Antiquity

* Babylonia
* Egypt
* Greece
* Rome

Medieval Europe

* Ancillae
* Black Sea slave trade
* Byzantine Empire
* Genoese slave trade
* Kholop
* Prague slave trade
* Serfs
* History
* In Russia
* Emancipation
* Thrall
* Venetian slave trade
* Balkan slave trade

Muslim world

* Baqt
* Barbary Coast
* slave trade
* pirates
* Sack of Baltimore
* Slave raid of Suðuroy
* Turkish Abductions
* Bukhara slave trade
* Concubinage
* history
* Ma malakat aymanukum
* Avret Pazarları
* Harem
* Abbasid harem
* Ottoman Imperial Harem
* Safavid imperial harem
* Qajar harem
* Jarya/Cariye
* Odalisque
* Qiyan
* Umm al-walad
* Circassian slave trade
* Contract of manumission
* Crimean slave trade
* Kafala system
* Khazar slave trade
* Khivan slave trade
* Ottoman Empire
* Avret Pazarları
* Saqaliba
* Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate
* Slavery in al-Andalus
* Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate
* Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate
* Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate
* Volga Bulgarian slave trade
* 21st century

Atlantic slave trade

* Brazil
* Bristol
* Database
* Dutch
* Middle Passage
* Nantes
* New France
* Panyarring
* Spanish Empire
* Slave Coast
* Thirteen colonies

Topics and practice

* Blackbirding
* Child soldiers
* Conscription
* Devshirme
* Ghilman
* Mamluk
* Coolie
* Corvée labour
* Drapetomania
* Dysaesthesia aethiopica
* Field slaves in the United States
* Treatment
* Gladiator
* Gladiatrix
* House slaves
* Planter class
* Proslavery thought
* Saqaliba
* Seasoning
* Slave market
* Slave Power
* Slave raiding
* Slavocracy
* Voluntary slavery
* White slavery

Naval

* Galley slave
* Impressment
* Pirates
* Shanghaiing
* Slave ship

By country or region

Sub-Saharan Africa

* Contemporary Africa
* Trans-Saharan slave trade
* Red Sea slave trade
* Indian Ocean slave trade
* Zanzibar slave trade
* Angola
* Chad
* Comoros
* Ethiopia
* Mali
* Mauritania
* Niger
* Nigeria
* Seychelles
* Somalia
* Somali slave trade
* South Africa
* Sudan
* Zanzibar

North and South America

* Pre-Columbian America
* Aztec
* Americas indigenous
* U.S. Natives
* United States
* field slaves
* female
* contemporary
* maps
* partus
* prison labour
* slave codes
* treatment
* interregional
* proslavery
* sexual slavery
* The Bahamas
* Canada
* Caribbean
* Barbados
* British Virgin Islands
* Trinidad
* Code Noir
* Latin America
* Brazil
* Lei Áurea
* Colombia
* Cuba
* Haiti
* revolt
* Restavek
* (Encomienda)
* Puerto Rico

East, Southeast, and South Asia

* Haruwa-charuwa
* Human trafficking in Southeast Asia
* Bhutan
* Brunei
* China
* Booi Aha
* Eunuchs
* Laogai
* penal system
* India
* Debt bondage
* Chukri System
* Bawi system
* Indonesia
* Japan
* comfort women
* Karayuki-san
* Korea
* Kwalliso
* Nobi
* Malaysia
* Maldives
* Slavery in the Mongol Empire
* Thailand
* Yankee princess
* Vietnam

Australia and Oceania

* Australia
* Human trafficking
* Blackbirding
* Slave raiding in Easter Island
* Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea
* Blackbirding in Polynesia

Europe and North Asia

* Sex trafficking in Europe
* United Kingdom
* Penal Labour
* Slavery
* Albania
* Bulgaria
* Denmark
* Dutch Republic
* Finland
* France
* Georgia
* Germany in World War II
* Hungary
* Malta
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* Serbia
* Spain
* Sweden
* Switzerland

North Africa and West Asia

* Afghanistan
* Bacha bazi
* Algeria
* Bahrain
* Egypt
* Human trafficking in the Middle East
* Iran
* Iraq
* Jordan
* Kuwait
* Lebanon
* Libya
* Morocco
* Oman
* Palestine
* Saudi Arabia
* Syria
* Tunisia
* Qatar
* Yemen
* United Arab Emirates

Religion

* Bible
* Christianity
* Catholicism
* Mormonism
* Islam
* Judaism
* Baháʼí Faith

Opposition and resistance

* Abolitionism
* U.K.
* U.S.
* Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90
* Temporary Slavery Commission
* 1926 Slavery Convention
* Committee of Experts on Slavery
* Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery
* Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery
* Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery
* Abolitionists
* Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention
* Anti-Slavery International
* Blockade of Africa
* U.K.
* U.S.
* Colonization
* Liberia
* Sierra Leone
* Compensated emancipation
* Freedman
* Manumission
* Freedom suit
* Slave Power
* Underground Railroad
* songs
* Slave rebellion
* Slave Trade Acts
* International law
* Third Servile War
* 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
* Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom
* Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]

Related

* Common law
* Forced labour
* Fugitive slaves
* laws
* convention
* Great Dismal Swamp maroons
* Indentured servitude
* List of slaves
* owners
* last survivors of American slavery
* List of slavery-related memorials and museums
* Slave catcher
* Slave marriages in the United States
* Slave narrative
* films
* songs
* Slave name
* Slave patrol
* Slave Route Project
* breeding
* court cases
* Washington
* Jefferson
* J.Q. Adams
* Lincoln
* Emancipation Proclamation
* 40 acres
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Iron bit
* Emancipation Day

* v
* t
* e

|  |

This article is part of
a series about

Abraham Lincoln

|

* * *

Personal

* Early life and career
* Family
* Health
* Religious views
* Sexuality
* Patent
* Artifacts and relics
* Photographs
* Black Hawk War

* * *

Political

* Spot Resolutions
* Political career, 1849–1861
* Baltimore Plot
* Douglas debates
* Views on slavery

* * *

16th President of the United States

* Presidency
* Transition
* Inaugurations
* first
* second

* * *

Tenure

* American Civil War
* The Union
* Proclamation 80
* Emancipation Proclamation
* Ten percent plan
* 13th Amendment
* Reconstruction

* * *

Presidential campaigns

* 1860
* election
* convention
* 1864
* election
* convention

* * *

Speeches and works

* Inaugural speeches
* first
* second
* State of the Union
* 1861
* 1862
* 1863
* 1864
* Lyceum
* Peoria
* Lost Speech
* House Divided
* Cooper Union
* Farewell address
* Gettysburg

* Poetry
* "The Suicide's Soliloquy"
* Bixby letter
* McCullough letter

* * *

Assassination

* Baltimore Plot
* State funeral
* Tomb
* Catafalque
* Flags
* Hearse
* Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences

* * *

Legacy

* Historical reputation
* Memorials
* Depictions
* Lincoln's Birthday
* Ghost

* Bibliography

* Topical guide

* * *

* v
* t
* e

The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95,[2][3] was a presidential proclamation and executive order[4] issued by United States president Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the effect of changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States".[5] The Emancipation Proclamation played a significant part in the end of slavery in the United States.

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.[6] Its third paragraph begins:

> 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;…

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation.[5] It stated:

> 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 … 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:

Lincoln then listed the ten states — of the eleven that had seceded — still in rebellion, Tennessee then being under Union control,[7] and continued:

> 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 I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States.... 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.

The Proclamation applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country, though it excluded states not in rebellion, as well as parts of Virginia under Union control and Louisiana parishes thought to be pro-Union.[8][9][10] Around 25,000 to 75,000 were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place. It could not be enforced in the areas still in rebellion,[10] but, as the Union army took control of Confederate regions, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the liberation of more than three and a half million enslaved people in those regions by the end of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation outraged white Southerners and their sympathizers, who saw it as the beginning of a race war. It energized abolitionists, and undermined those Europeans who wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy.[11] The Proclamation lifted the spirits of African Americans, both free and enslaved. It encouraged many to escape from slavery and flee toward Union lines, where many joined the Union Army.[12] The Emancipation Proclamation became a historic document because it "would redefine the Civil War, turning it from a struggle to preserve the Union to one focused on ending slavery, and set a decisive course for how the nation would be reshaped after that historic conflict."[13]

The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To ensure the abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., Lincoln also mandated that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require them to enact laws abolishing slavery (which occurred during the war in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana); Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) and pushed for passage of the 13th Amendment. The Senate passed the 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on April 8, 1864; the House of Representatives did so on January 31, 1865; and the required three-fourths of the states ratified it on December 6, 1865. The amendment made slavery and involuntary servitude unconstitutional, "except as a punishment for crime…".[14]

## Authority

[edit]

Further information: Slave states and free states and Slavery and the United States Constitution

Abraham Lincoln

The United States Constitution of 1787 did not use the word "slavery" but included several provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise (in Article I, Section 2) allocated congressional representation, and therefore the number of each states' votes in the Electoral College, based "on the whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons".[15] Under the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2), "No person held to Service or Labour in one State" would become legally free by escaping to another. Article I, Section 9 allowed Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the "Importation of Persons", but not until 1808.[16] However, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment—which states, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—slaves were understood to be property.[17] Although abolitionists used the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it was made part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property by Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).[18] Slavery was also supported in law and in practice by a pervasive culture of white supremacy.[19] Nonetheless, between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. No Southern state did so, and the slave population of the South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million people at the beginning of the Civil War, when most slave states sought to break away from the United States.[20]

Lincoln accepted the conventional interpretation of the Constitution before 1865 as not allowing the federal government in peacetime to end slavery in the states where it existed, as opposed to in U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.[21] During the Civil War, however, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation under his authority as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.[22] As such, in the Emancipation Proclamation he claimed to have the authority to free persons held as slaves in those states that were in rebellion "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion". In the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln said "attention is hereby called" to two 1862 statutes, namely "An Act to Make an Additional Article of War" and the Confiscation Act of 1862, but he didn't mention any statute in the Final Emancipation Proclamation and, in any event, the source of his authority to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the Final Emancipation Proclamation was his "joint capacity as President and Commander-in-Chief".[23] Lincoln therefore did not have such authority over the four border slave-holding states that were not in rebellion—Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware—so those states were not named in the Proclamation.[25] The fifth border jurisdiction, West Virginia, where slavery remained legal but was in the process of being abolished, was, in January 1863, still part of the legally recognized "reorganized" state of Virginia, based in Alexandria, which was in the Union (as opposed to the Confederate state of Virginia, based in Richmond).

## Coverage

[edit]

Areas covered by the Emancipation Proclamation are in red, slave-holding areas not covered are in blue

The Emancipation Proclamation applied in the ten states that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but it did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slaveholding border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware) or in parts of Virginia that were no longer in rebellion and Louisiana's sugar-growing parishes because Lincoln considered them Union loyalists.[8][9] Those slaves were freed by later state and federal actions.[26] The areas covered were "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)."[27]

The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, under a recognized Union government, so it was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties then in the process of forming the new state of West Virginia, and seven additional counties and two cities in the Union-controlled Tidewater region of Virginia.[28] Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and 13 named parishes of Louisiana, because Lincoln, as mentioned, regarded them as loyal to the Union. These exemptions left unemancipated an additional 300,000 slaves.[8][9][29]

The Emancipation Proclamation has been ridiculed, notably by Richard Hofstadter, who wrote that it "had all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading" and "declared free all slaves ... precisely where its effect could not reach".[30][31] Disagreeing with Hofstadter, William W. Freehling wrote that Lincoln's asserting his power as Commander-in-Chief to issue the proclamation "reads not like an entrepreneur's bill for past services but like a warrior's brandishing of a new weapon".[32]

The Emancipation Proclamation resulted in the emancipation of a substantial percentage of the slaves in the Confederate states as the Union armies advanced through the South and slaves escaped to Union lines, or slave owners fled, leaving slaves behind. The Emancipation Proclamation also committed the Union to ending slavery in addition to preserving the Union.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation resulted in the gradual freeing of most slaves, it did not make slavery illegal. Of the states that were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland,[33] Missouri,[34] Tennessee,[35] and West Virginia[36] prohibited slavery before the war ended. In 1863, President Lincoln proposed a moderate plan for the Reconstruction of the captured Confederate State of Louisiana.[37] Only 10 percent of the state's electorate had to take the loyalty oath. The state was also required to accept the Emancipation Proclamation and abolish slavery in its new constitution. By December 1864, the Lincoln plan abolishing slavery had been enacted not only in Louisiana, but also in Arkansas and Tennessee.[38][39] In Kentucky, Union Army commanders relied on the proclamation's offer of freedom to slaves who enrolled in the Army and provided freedom for an enrollee's entire family; for this and other reasons, the number of slaves in the state fell by more than 70 percent during the war.[40] However, in Delaware[41] and Kentucky,[42] slavery continued to be legal until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect.

## Background

[edit]

### Military action prior to emancipation

[edit]

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required individuals to return runaway slaves to their owners. During the war, in May 1861, Union general Benjamin Butler declared that three slaves who escaped to Union lines were contraband of war, and accordingly he refused to return them, saying to a man who sought their return, "I am under no constitutional obligations to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be".[43] On May 30, after a cabinet meeting called by President Lincoln, "Simon Cameron, the secretary of war, telegraphed Butler to inform him that his contraband policy 'is approved.'"[44] This decision was controversial because it could have been taken to imply recognition of the Confederacy as a separate, independent sovereign state under international law, a notion that Lincoln steadfastly denied. In addition, as contraband, these people were legally designated as "property" when they crossed Union lines and their ultimate status was uncertain.[45]

### Governmental action toward emancipation

[edit]

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln by Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1864)

* * *

Clickable image: use cursor to identify.

In December 1861, Lincoln sent his first annual message to Congress (the State of the Union Address, but then typically given in writing and not referred to as such). In it he praised the free labor system for respecting human rights over property rights; he endorsed legislation to address the status of contraband slaves and slaves in loyal states, possibly through buying their freedom with federal money; and he endorsed federal funding of voluntary colonization.[46][47] In January 1862, Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican leader in the House, called for total war against the rebellion to include emancipation of slaves, arguing that emancipation, by forcing the loss of enslaved labor, would ruin the rebel economy. On March 13, 1862, Congress approved an Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves, which prohibited "All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States" from returning fugitive slaves to their owners.[48] Pursuant to a law signed by Lincoln, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, and owners were compensated.[49]

On June 9, 1862, Congress passed a bill that prohibited slavery in all current and future United States territories (though not in the states), and, on June 19, President Lincoln signed it into law. This act effectively repudiated the 1857 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in U.S. territories.[50][51] It also rejected the notion of popular sovereignty that had been advanced by Stephen A. Douglas as a solution to the slavery controversy, while completing the effort first legislatively proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1784 to confine slavery within the borders of existing states.[52][53]

On August 6, 1861, the First Confiscation Act freed the slaves who were employed "against the Government and lawful authority of the United States."[54] On July 17, 1862, the Second Confiscation Act freed the slaves "within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by forces of the United States."[55] The Second Confiscation Act, unlike the First Confiscation Act, explicitly provided that all slaves covered by it would be permanently freed, stating in section 10 that "all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves."[56] However, Lincoln's position continued to be that, although Congress lacked the power to free the slaves in rebel-held states, he, as commander in chief, could do so if he deemed it a proper military measure.[57] By this time, in the summer of 1862, Lincoln had drafted the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued on September 22, 1862. It declared that, on January 1, 1863, he would free the slaves in states still in rebellion.[58]

### Public opinion of emancipation

[edit]

Carte de visite image of Peter, taken in Baton Rouge spring 1863; widely distributed by abolitionists to expose the brutality of slavery

Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves. In the summer of 1862, Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential New-York Tribune wrote a famous editorial entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" demanding a more aggressive attack on the Confederacy and faster emancipation of the slaves: "On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one ... intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel ... that the rebellion, if crushed tomorrow, would be renewed if slavery were left in full vigor and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union."[59] Lincoln responded in his open letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862:

> If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.... I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.[60]

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer wrote about Lincoln's letter: "Unknown to Greeley, Lincoln composed this after he had already drafted a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he had determined to issue after the next Union military victory. Therefore, this letter, was in truth, an attempt to position the impending announcement in terms of saving the Union, not freeing slaves as a humanitarian gesture. It was one of Lincoln's most skillful public relations efforts, even if it has cast longstanding doubt on his sincerity as a liberator."[58] Historian Richard Striner argues that "for years" Lincoln's letter has been misread as "Lincoln only wanted to save the Union."[61] However, within the context of Lincoln's entire career and pronouncements on slavery this interpretation is wrong, according to Striner. Rather, Lincoln was softening the strong Northern white supremacist opposition to his imminent emancipation by tying it to the cause of the Union. This opposition would fight for the Union but not to end slavery, so Lincoln gave them the means and motivation to do both, at the same time.[61] In effect, then, Lincoln may have already chosen the third option he mentioned to Greeley: "freeing some and leaving others alone"; that is, freeing slaves in the states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but leaving enslaved those in the border states and Union-occupied areas.

Nevertheless, in the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation itself, Lincoln said that he would recommend to Congress that it compensate states that "adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery". In addition, during the hundred days between September 22, 1862, when he issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and January 1, 1863, when he issued the Final Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln took actions that suggest that he continued to consider the first option he mentioned to Greeley — saving the Union without freeing any slave — a possibility. Historian William W. Freehling wrote, "From mid-October to mid-November 1862, he sent personal envoys to Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas".[62][63] Each of these envoys carried with him a letter from Lincoln stating that if the people of their state desired "to avoid the unsatisfactory" terms of the Final Emancipation Proclamation "and to have peace again upon the old terms" (i.e., with slavery intact), they should rally "the largest number of the people possible" to vote in "elections of members to the Congress of the United States ... friendly to their object".[64] Later, in his Annual Message to Congress of December 1, 1862, Lincoln proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution providing that any state that abolished slavery before January 1, 1900, would receive compensation from the United States in the form of interest-bearing U.S. bonds. Adoption of this amendment, in theory, could have ended the war without ever permanently ending slavery, because the amendment provided, "Any State having received bonds ... and afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon".[65]

In his 2014 book, Lincoln's Gamble, journalist and historian Todd Brewster asserted that Lincoln's desire to reassert the saving of the Union as his sole war goal was, in fact, crucial to his claim of legal authority for emancipation. Since slavery was protected by the Constitution, the only way that he could free the slaves was as a tactic of war—not as the mission itself.[66] But that carried the risk that when the war ended, so would the justification for freeing the slaves. Late in 1862, Lincoln asked his Attorney General, Edward Bates, for an opinion as to whether slaves freed through a war-related proclamation of emancipation could be re-enslaved once the war was over. Bates had to work through the language of the Dred Scott decision to arrive at an answer, but he finally concluded that they could indeed remain free. Still, a complete end to slavery would require a constitutional amendment.[67]

Conflicting advice as to whether to free the slaves was presented to Lincoln in public and private. Thomas Nast, a cartoon artist during the Civil War and the late 1800s considered "Father of the American Cartoon", composed many works, including a two-sided spread that showed the transition from slavery into civilization after President Lincoln signed the Proclamation. Nast believed in equal opportunity and equality for all people, including enslaved Africans or free blacks. A mass rally in Chicago on September 7, 1862, demanded immediate and universal emancipation of slaves. A delegation headed by William W. Patton met the president at the White House on September 13. Lincoln had declared in peacetime that he had no constitutional authority to free the slaves. Even used as a war power, emancipation was a risky political act. Public opinion as a whole was against it.[68] There would be strong opposition among Copperhead Democrats and an uncertain reaction from loyal border states. Delaware and Maryland already had a high percentage of free blacks: 91.2% and 49.7%, respectively, in 1860.[69]

## Drafting and issuance of the proclamation

[edit]

English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Emancipation Proclamation

Eastman Johnson (American, 1824–1906) – A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves, c. 1862

Lincoln first discussed the proclamation with his cabinet in July 1862. He drafted his preliminary proclamation and read it to Secretary of State William Seward and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, on July 13. Seward and Welles were at first speechless, then Seward referred to possible anarchy throughout the South and resulting foreign intervention; Welles apparently said nothing. On July 22, Lincoln presented it to his entire cabinet as something he had determined to do and he asked their opinion on wording.[70] Although Secretary of War Edwin Stanton supported it, Seward advised Lincoln to issue the proclamation after a major Union victory, or else it would appear as if the Union was giving "its last shriek of retreat".[71] Walter Stahr, however, writes, "There are contemporary sources, however, that suggest others were involved in the decision to delay", and Stahr quotes them.[72]

In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In the battle, though the Union suffered heavier losses than the Confederates and General McClellan allowed the escape of Robert E. Lee's retreating troops, Union forces turned back a Confederate invasion of Maryland, eliminating more than a quarter of Lee's army in the process. This marked a turning point in the Civil War.

1864 reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

On September 22, 1862, five days after Antietam, and while residing at the Soldier's Home, Lincoln called his cabinet into session and issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.[73] According to Civil War historian James M. McPherson, Lincoln told cabinet members, "I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves."[74][75] Lincoln had first shown an early draft of the proclamation to Vice President Hannibal Hamlin,[76] an ardent abolitionist, who was more often kept in the dark on presidential decisions. Lincoln issued the final proclamation, as he had promised in the preliminary proclamation, on January 1, 1863. Although implicitly granted authority by Congress, Lincoln used his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to issue the proclamation "as a necessary war measure." Therefore, it was not the equivalent of a statute enacted by Congress or a constitutional amendment, because Lincoln or a subsequent president could revoke it. One week after issuing the final Proclamation, Lincoln wrote to Major General John McClernand: "After the commencement of hostilities I struggled nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the 'institution'; and when finally I conditionally determined to touch it, I gave a hundred days fair notice of my purpose, to all the States and people, within which time they could have turned it wholly aside, by simply again becoming good citizens of the United States. They chose to disregard it, and I made the peremptory proclamation on what appeared to me to be a military necessity. And being made, it must stand". Lincoln continued, however, that the states included in the proclamation could "adopt systems of apprenticeship for the colored people, conforming substantially to the most approved plans of gradual emancipation; and ... they may be nearly as well off, in this respect, as if the present trouble had not occurred". He concluded by asking McClernand not to "make this letter public".[77][78]

A printed broadside recruiting men of color to enlist in the U.S. military after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

Initially, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed only a small percentage of the slaves, namely those who were behind Union lines in areas not exempted. Most slaves were still behind Confederate lines or in exempted Union-occupied areas. Secretary of State William H. Seward commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Had any slave state ended its secession attempt before January 1, 1863, it could have kept slavery, at least temporarily. The Proclamation freed the slaves only in areas of the South that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. But as the Union army advanced into the South, slaves fled to behind its lines, and "[s]hortly after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln administration lifted the ban on enticing slaves into Union lines."[79] These events contributed to the destruction of slavery.

The Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for the enrollment of freed slaves into the United States military. During the war nearly 200,000 black men, most of them ex-slaves, joined the Union Army.[80] Their contributions were significant in winning the war. The Confederacy did not allow slaves in their army as soldiers until the last month before its defeat.[81]

Though the counties of Virginia that were soon to form West Virginia were specifically exempted from the Proclamation (Jefferson County being the only exception), a condition of the state's admittance to the Union was that its constitution provide for the gradual abolition of slavery (an immediate emancipation of all slaves was also adopted there in early 1865). Slaves in the border states of Maryland and Missouri were also emancipated by separate state action before the Civil War ended. In Maryland, a new state constitution abolishing slavery in the state went into effect on November 1, 1864. The Union-occupied counties of eastern Virginia and the allegedly pro-Union parishes of Louisiana, which had been exempted from the Proclamation, both adopted state constitutions that abolished slavery in April 1864.[8][9][82][83] In early 1865, Tennessee adopted an amendment to its constitution prohibiting slavery.[84][85]

## Implementation

[edit]

Further information: Slave states and free states

The moment the proclamation was signed, portrayed by Lee Lawrie in Lincoln, Nebraska

The Proclamation was issued in a preliminary version and a final version. The former, issued on September 22, 1862, was a preliminary announcement outlining the intent of the latter, which took effect 100 days later on January 1, 1863, during the second year of the Civil War. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was Abraham Lincoln's declaration that all slaves would be permanently freed in all areas of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The ten affected states were individually named in the final Emancipation Proclamation (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina). Not included were the Union slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky. Also not named was the state of Tennessee, in which a Union-controlled military government had already been set up, based in the capital, Nashville. Specific exemptions were stated for areas also under Union control on January 1, 1863, namely 48 counties that would soon become West Virginia, seven other named counties of Virginia including Berkeley and Hampshire counties, which were soon added to West Virginia, New Orleans and 13 named parishes nearby.[86]

Union-occupied areas of the Confederate states where the proclamation was put into immediate effect by local commanders included Winchester, Virginia,[87] Corinth, Mississippi,[88] the Sea Islands along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia,[89] Key West, Florida,[90] and Port Royal, South Carolina.[91]

### Immediate impact

[edit]

A photograph of two children who likely, were recently emancipated – circa 1870 "Scene Along the Route" from a Philadelphia Inquirer correspondent (possibly U.H. Painter[92]) embedded with the Army of the Potomac, The Indiana Progress, June 1, 1864

On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward the stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation.[93] It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave;[94] historian Lerone Bennett Jr. alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves.[95] However, as a result of the Proclamation, most slaves became free during the course of the war, beginning on the day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina,[96] and Port Royal, South Carolina[91] record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. "Estimates of the number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation."[97][98] This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of eastern North Carolina, the Mississippi Valley, northern Alabama, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a large part of Arkansas, and the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina.[99] Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower Shenandoah Valley and the area around Alexandria were covered.[97] Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers.[100] On the other hand, Robert Gould Shaw wrote to his mother on September 25, 1862, "So the 'Proclamation of Emancipation' has come at last, or rather, its forerunner. I suppose you all are very much excited about it. For my part, I can't see what practical good it can do now. Wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and the Proclamation will not free them where we don't go." Ten days later, he wrote her again, "Don't imagine, from what I said in my last that I thought Mr. Lincoln's 'Emancipation Proclamation' not right ... but still, as a war-measure, I don't see the immediate benefit of it, ... as the slaves are sure of being free at any rate, with or without an Emancipation Act."[101]

Booker T. Washington, as a boy of 9 in Virginia, remembered the day in early 1865:[102]

> As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... [S]ome man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.

Winslow Homer 1876 – "A Visit from the Old Mistress" depicts a tense meeting between a group of newly freed slaves and their former slaveholder – Smithsonian Museum of American Art

Runaway slaves who had escaped to Union lines had previously been held by the Union Army as "contraband of war" under the Confiscation Acts. The Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia had been occupied by the Union Navy earlier in the war. The whites had fled to the mainland while the blacks stayed. An early program of Reconstruction was set up for the former slaves, including schools and training. Naval officers read the proclamation and told them they were free.[89]

Slaves had been part of the "engine of war" for the Confederacy. They produced and prepared food; sewed uniforms; repaired railways; worked on farms and in factories, shipping yards, and mines; built fortifications; and served as hospital workers and common laborers. News of the Proclamation spread rapidly by word of mouth, arousing hopes of freedom, creating general confusion, and encouraging thousands to escape to Union lines.[103][page needed] George Washington Albright, a teenage slave in Mississippi, recalled that like many of his fellow slaves, his father escaped to join Union forces. According to Albright, plantation owners tried to keep news of the Proclamation from slaves, but they learned of it through the grapevine. The young slave became a "runner" for an informal group they called the 4Ls ("Lincoln's Legal Loyal League") bringing news of the proclamation to secret slave meetings at plantations throughout the region.[104]

Confederate general Robert E. Lee saw the Emancipation Proclamation as a way for the Union to increase the number of soldiers it could place on the field, making it imperative for the Confederacy to increase its own numbers. Writing on the matter after the sack of Fredericksburg, Lee wrote, "In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution [and] our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies, until God in his mercy shall bless us with the establishment of our independence."[105][106][page needed]

The Emancipation Proclamation marked a significant turning point in the war as it made the goal of the North not only preserving the Union, but also freeing the slaves.[107] The Proclamation also rallied support from abolitionists and Europeans, while encouraging enslaved individuals to escape to the North. This weakened the South's labor force while bolstering the North's ranks.[108]

### Political impact

[edit]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

"Abe Lincoln's Last Card; Or, Rouge-et-Noir" (Red and Black), a cartoon by John Tenniel printed by Punch[109] after the London Times wrote in October 1862 that Lincoln had played his "last card" in issuing the Proclamation.[110][111] Lincoln's hair is in points, suggesting horns. The cartoon was reprinted often in the Copperhead press.[112][113][page needed]

The Proclamation was immediately denounced by Copperhead Democrats, who opposed the war and advocated restoring the union by allowing slavery. Horatio Seymour, while running for governor of New York, cast the Emancipation Proclamation as a call for slaves to commit extreme acts of violence on all white southerners, saying it was "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilized Europe".[114] The Copperheads also saw the Proclamation as an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power. Editor Henry A. Reeves wrote in Greenport's Republican Watchman that "In the name of freedom for Negroes, [the proclamation] imperils the liberty of white men; to test an utopian theory of equality of races which Nature, History and Experience alike condemn as monstrous, it overturns the Constitution and Civil Laws and sets up Military Usurpation in their stead."[114]

Racism remained pervasive on both sides of the conflict and many in the North supported the war only as an effort to force the South to stay in the Union. The promises of many Republican politicians that the war was to restore the Union and not about black rights or ending slavery were declared lies by their opponents, who cited the Proclamation. In Columbiana, Ohio, Copperhead David Allen told a crowd, "Now fellow Democrats I ask you if you are going to be forced into a war against your Britheren of the Southern States for the Negro. I answer No!"[115] The Copperheads saw the Proclamation as irrefutable proof of their position and the beginning of a political rise for their members; in Connecticut, H. B. Whiting wrote that the truth was now plain even to "those stupid thickheaded persons who persisted in thinking that the President was a conservative man and that the war was for the restoration of the Union under the Constitution."[115]

War Democrats, who rejected the Copperhead position within their party, found themselves in a quandary. While throughout the war they had continued to espouse the racist positions of their party and their disdain of the concerns of slaves, they did see the Proclamation as a viable military tool against the South and worried that opposing it might demoralize troops in the Union army. The question would continue to trouble them and eventually lead to a split within their party as the war progressed.[115]

Lincoln further alienated many in the Union two days after issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by suspending habeas corpus. His opponents linked these two actions in their claims that he was becoming a despot. In light of this and a lack of military success for the Union armies, many War Democrat voters who had previously supported Lincoln turned against him and joined the Copperheads in the off-year elections held in October and November.[115]

In the 1862 elections, the Democrats gained 28 seats in the House as well as the governorship of New York. Lincoln's friend Orville Hickman Browning told the president that the Proclamation and the suspension of habeas corpus had been "disastrous" for his party by handing the Democrats so many weapons. Lincoln made no response. Copperhead William Jarvis of Connecticut pronounced the election the "beginning of the end of the utter downfall of Abolitionism".[116]

Historians James M. McPherson and Allan Nevins state that though the results looked very troubling, they could be seen favorably by Lincoln; his opponents did well only in their historic strongholds and "at the national level their gains in the House were the smallest of any minority party's in an off-year election in nearly a generation. Michigan, California, and Iowa all went Republican.... Moreover, the Republicans picked up five seats in the Senate."[116] McPherson states, "If the election was in any sense a referendum on emancipation and on Lincoln's conduct of the war, a majority of Northern voters endorsed these policies."[116]

#### Confederate response

[edit]

"NEGROES LEAVING THEIR HOME: The view on page 237 illustrates a phase of the war which the rebels have found it difficult to contemplate with any complacency. The exodus of the slaves from the bondage which has so long oppressed them has been steady and continuous from the moment the first blow was struck against the national honor, and it still goes on, hundreds and thousands of the poor, outraged creatures cowing weekly into tho Union lines at all points in the field. Our sketch gives an admirable view of the desolation which surrounds the homes of the negroes, and the heartiness and energy with which they make their way to freedom upon the slightest opportunity. The Federal gun-boat, it will be seen, lies far out at sea, but the sharp eyes of the waiting, watching bondmen have caught sight of the flag she carries; they know there is shelter under it for them, and launching their little boat, they carefully put the aged and infirm, with their few more valuable effects, aboard, and, with a pang, it may be, at leaving their rude home, but with hope and joy in their hearts at the prospect of deliverance, pull away from the shore, which henceforth is to be to them only a dark dreary line marking a yet darker past. There is pathos as well as history in the picture." (Harper's Weekly, April 9, 1864)

The initial Confederate response was outrage. The Proclamation was seen as vindication of the rebellion and proof that Lincoln would have abolished slavery even if the states had remained in the Union.[117] It intensified the fear of slaves revolting and undermined morale, especially spurring fear among slave owners who saw it as a threat to their business.[118] In an August 1863 letter to President Lincoln, U.S. Army general Ulysses S. Grant observed that the proclamation's "arming the negro", together with "the emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest [sic] blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a greatdeel [sic] about it and profess to be very angry."[119] In May 1863, a few months after the Proclamation took effect, the Confederacy passed a law demanding "full and ample retaliation" against the U.S. for such measures. The Confederacy stated that black U.S. soldiers captured while fighting against the Confederacy would be tried as slave insurrectionists in civil courts—a capital offense with an automatic sentence of death. Less than a year after the law's passage, the Confederates massacred black U.S. soldiers at Fort Pillow.[120]

Confederate President Jefferson Davis reacted to the Emancipation Proclamation with outrage and in an address to the Confederate Congress on January 12 threatened to send any U.S. military officer captured in Confederate territory covered by the proclamation to state authorities to be charged with "exciting servile insurrection", which was a capital offense.[121]

Confederate General Robert E. Lee called the Proclamation a "savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death."[122]

However, some Confederates welcomed the Proclamation, because they believed it would strengthen pro-slavery sentiment in the Confederacy and thus lead to greater enlistment of white men into the Confederate army. According to one Confederate cavalry sergeant from Kentucky, "The Proclamation is worth three hundred thousand soldiers to our Government at least.... It shows exactly what this war was brought about for and the intention of its damnable authors."[123] Even some Union soldiers concurred with this view and expressed reservations about the Proclamation, not on principle, but rather because they were afraid it would increase the Confederacy's determination to fight on and maintain slavery. One Union soldier from New York stated worryingly after the Proclamation's issuance, "I know enough of the southern spirit that I think they will fight for the institution of slavery even to extermination."[124]

As a result of the Proclamation, the price of slaves in the Confederacy increased in the months after its issuance, with one Confederate from South Carolina opining in 1865 that "now is the time for Uncle to buy some negro women and children...."[125]

### International impact

[edit]

As Lincoln had hoped, the proclamation turned foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union by gaining the support of anti-slavery countries and countries that had already abolished slavery (especially the developed countries in Europe such as the United Kingdom and France). This shift ended the Confederacy's hopes of gaining official recognition.[126]

Since the Emancipation Proclamation made the eradication of slavery an explicit Union war goal, it linked support for the South to support for slavery. Public opinion in Britain would not tolerate support for slavery. As Henry Adams noted, "The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us than all our former victories and all our diplomacy." In Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi hailed Lincoln as "the heir of the aspirations of John Brown". On August 6, 1863, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: "Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure".[127]

Mayor Abel Haywood, a representative for workers from Manchester, England, wrote to Lincoln saying, "We joyfully honor you for many decisive steps toward practically exemplifying your belief in the words of your great founders: 'All men are created free and equal.'"[128] The Emancipation Proclamation served to ease tensions with Europe over the North's conduct of the war, and combined with the recent failed Southern offensive at Antietam, to remove any practical chance for the Confederacy to receive foreign military intervention in the war.[129]

However, in spite of the Emancipation Proclamation, arms sales to the Confederacy through blockade running, from British firms and dealers, continued, with knowledge of the British government.[130] The Confederacy was able to sustain the fight for two more years largely thanks to the weapons supplied by British blockade runners. As a result, the blockade runners operating from Britain were responsible for killing 400,000 additional soldiers and civilians on both sides.[131][132][133][134]

## Gettysburg Address

[edit]

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 made indirect reference to the Proclamation and the ending of slavery as a war goal with the phrase "new birth of freedom". The Proclamation solidified Lincoln's support among the rapidly growing abolitionist elements of the Republican Party and ensured that they would not block his renomination in 1864.[135][page needed]

## Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

[edit]

In December 1863, Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which dealt with the ways the rebel states could reconcile with the Union. Key provisions required that the states accept the Emancipation Proclamation and thus the freedom of their slaves, and accept the Confiscation Acts, as well as the Act banning slavery in United States territories.[136]

## Postbellum

[edit]

"Ambrotype of African American woman with flag," said to be a washerwoman for Union troops quartered outside Richmond, Virginia (Smithsonian 2005.0002.01)

Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation would be construed solely as a war measure, as Lincoln intended, and would no longer apply once fighting ended. They also were increasingly anxious to secure the freedom of all slaves, not just those freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Thus pressed, Lincoln staked a large part of his 1864 presidential campaign on a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery throughout the United States. Lincoln's campaign was bolstered by votes in both Maryland and Missouri to abolish slavery in those states. Maryland's new constitution abolishing slavery took effect on November 1, 1864.[137] Slavery in Missouri ended on January 11, 1865, when a state convention approved an ordinance abolishing slavery by a vote of 60-4,[138] and later the same day, Governor Thomas C. Fletcher followed up with his own "Proclamation of Freedom."[139]

Winning re-election, Lincoln pressed the lame duck 38th Congress to pass the proposed amendment immediately rather than wait for the incoming 39th Congress to convene. In January 1865, Congress sent to the state legislatures for ratification what became the Thirteenth Amendment, banning slavery in all U.S. states and territories, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was ratified by the legislatures of enough states by December 6, 1865, and proclaimed 12 days later. There were approximately 40,000 slaves in Kentucky and 1,000 in Delaware who were liberated then.[140]

## Critiques

[edit]

Further information: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

Lincoln's proclamation has been called "one of the most radical emancipations in the history of the modern world."[141] Nonetheless, as over the years American society continued to be deeply unfair towards black people, cynicism towards Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation increased. One attack was Lerone Bennett's Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (2000), which claimed that Lincoln was a white supremacist who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in lieu of the real racial reforms for which radical abolitionists pushed. To this, one scholarly review states that "Few Civil War scholars take Bennett and DiLorenzo seriously, pointing to their narrow political agenda and faulty research."[142] In his Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Allen C. Guelzo noted professional historians' lack of substantial respect for the document, since it has been the subject of few major scholarly studies. He argued that Lincoln was the U.S.'s "last Enlightenment politician"[143] and as such had "allegiance to 'reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason'.... But the most important among the Enlightenment's political virtues for Lincoln, and for his Proclamation, was prudence".[144]

Other historians have given more credit to Lincoln for what he accomplished toward ending slavery and for his own growth in political and moral stature.[145] More might have been accomplished if he had not been assassinated. As Eric Foner wrote:

> Lincoln was not an abolitionist or Radical Republican, a point Bennett reiterates innumerable times. He did not favor immediate abolition before the war, and held racist views typical of his time. But he was also a man of deep convictions when it came to slavery, and during the Civil War displayed a remarkable capacity for moral and political growth.[146]

Kal Ashraf wrote:

> Perhaps in rejecting the critical dualism—Lincoln as individual emancipator pitted against collective self-emancipators—there is an opportunity to recognise the greater persuasiveness of the combination. In a sense, yes: a racist, flawed Lincoln did something heroic, and not in lieu of collective participation, but next to, and enabled, by it. To venerate a singular 'Great Emancipator' may be as reductive as dismissing the significance of Lincoln's actions. Who he was as a man, no one of us can ever really know. So it is that the version of Lincoln we keep is also the version we make.[147]

## Legacy in the civil rights era

[edit]

### Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[edit]

President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation in the Oval Office hung above a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. in 2010

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made many references to the Emancipation Proclamation during the civil rights movement. These include an "Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address" he gave in New York City on September 12, 1962, in which he placed the Proclamation alongside the Declaration of Independence as an "imperishable" contribution to civilization and added, "All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations...." He lamented that despite a history where the United States "proudly professed the basic principles inherent in both documents," it "sadly practiced the antithesis of these principles." He concluded, "There is but one way to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation. That is to make its declarations of freedom real; to reach back to the origins of our nation when our message of equality electrified an unfree world, and reaffirm democracy by deeds as bold and daring as the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation."[148]

King's most famous invocation of the Emancipation Proclamation was in a speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (often referred to as the "I Have a Dream" speech). King began the speech saying "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination."[149]

#### The "Second Emancipation Proclamation"

[edit]

Main article: Second Emancipation Proclamation

In the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates called on President John F. Kennedy to bypass Southern segregationist opposition in the Congress by issuing an executive order to put an end to segregation.[150] This envisioned document was referred to as the "Second Emancipation Proclamation". Kennedy, however, did not issue a second Emancipation Proclamation "and noticeably avoided all centennial celebrations of emancipation." Historian David W. Blight points out that, although the idea of an executive order to act as a second Emancipation Proclamation "has been virtually forgotten," the manifesto that King and his associates produced calling for an executive order showed his "close reading of American politics" and recalled how moral leadership could have an effect on the American public through an executive order. Despite its failure "to spur a second Emancipation Proclamation from the White House, it was an important and emphatic attempt to combat the structured forgetting of emancipation latent within Civil War memory."[151]

### President John F. Kennedy

[edit]

On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy spoke on national television about civil rights. Kennedy, who had been routinely criticized as timid by some civil rights activists, reminded Americans that two black students had been peacefully enrolled in the University of Alabama with the aid of the National Guard, despite the opposition of Governor George Wallace.

John Kennedy called it a "moral issue."[152] Invoking the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation he said,

> One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes? Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.[153]

In the same speech, Kennedy announced he would introduce a comprehensive civil rights bill in the United States Congress, which he did a week later. Kennedy pushed for its passage until he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Historian Peniel E. Joseph holds Lyndon Johnson's ability to get that bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law on July 2, 1964, to have been aided by "the moral forcefulness of the June 11 speech", which had turned "the narrative of civil rights from a regional issue into a national story promoting racial equality and democratic renewal."[152]

### President Lyndon B. Johnson

[edit]

During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson invoked the Emancipation Proclamation, holding it up as a promise yet to be fully implemented.

As vice president, while speaking from Gettysburg on May 30, 1963 (Memorial Day), during the centennial year of the Emancipation Proclamation, Johnson connected it directly with the ongoing civil rights struggles of the time, saying "One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin.... In this hour, it is not our respective races which are at stake—it is our nation. Let those who care for their country come forward, North and South, white and Negro, to lead the way through this moment of challenge and decision.... Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact. To the extent that the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in fact, to that extent we shall have fallen short of assuring freedom to the free."[154]

As president, Johnson again invoked the proclamation in a speech presenting the Voting Rights Act at a joint session of Congress on Monday, March 15, 1965. This was one week after violence had been inflicted on peaceful civil rights marchers during the Selma to Montgomery marches. Johnson said "it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome. As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil, I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed—more than 100 years—since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than 100 years ago that Abraham Lincoln—a great President of another party—signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact. A century has passed—more than 100 years—since equality was promised, and yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise, and the promise is unkept. The time of justice has now come, and I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come, and when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American."[155]

## In popular culture

[edit]

U.S. commemorative stamp, 1963 [156]

In the 1963 episode of The Andy Griffith Show, "Andy Discovers America", Andy asks Barney to explain the Emancipation Proclamation to Opie who is struggling with history at school.[157] Barney brags about his history expertise, yet it is apparent he cannot answer Andy's question. He finally becomes frustrated and explains it is a proclamation for certain people who wanted emancipation.[158] In addition, the Emancipation Proclamation was also a main item of discussion in the movie Lincoln (2012) directed by Steven Spielberg.[159]

The Emancipation Proclamation is celebrated around the world, including on stamps of nations such as the Republic of Togo.[160] The United States commemorative was issued on August 16, 1963, the opening day of the Century of Negro Progress Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois. Designed by Georg Olden, an initial printing of 120 million stamps was authorized.[156]

## See also

[edit]

* District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act
* 1866 Georgia State Freedmen's Conventions
* Juneteenth emancipation in Texas
* Abolition of slavery timeline
* Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves – 1862 statute
* Confiscation Acts
* Contraband (American Civil War)
* Emancipation Memorial – a sculpture in Washington, D.C., completed in 1876
* Emancipation reform of 1861 – Russia
* Lieber Code
* Reconstruction Amendments – amendments added to the Constitution after 1863
* Slavery Abolition Act 1833 – an act passed by the British parliament abolishing slavery in British colonies with compensation to the owners
* Slave Trade Acts
* Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution – 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
* Timeline of the civil rights movement
* War Governors' Conference – gave Lincoln the much needed political support to issue the Proclamation

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The Emancipation Proclamation". National Archives. January 28, 2022. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
2. ^ "Proclamation 95—Regarding the Status of Slaves in States Engaged in Rebellion Against the United States [Emancipation Proclamation] | The American Presidency Project". presidency.ucsb.edu. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
3. ^ Harward, Brian (2020). The Presidency in Times of Crisis and Disaster: Primary Documents in Context. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio. p. 228\. ISBN 978-1-44-087088-0. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
4. ^ Dirck, Brian R. (2007). The Executive Branch of Federal Government: People, Process, and Politics. ABC-CLIO. p. 102. ISBN 978-1851097913. "The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, itself a rather unusual thing in those days. Executive orders are simply presidential directives issued to agents of the executive department by its boss."
5. ^ a b "Transcript of the Proclamation". National Archives and Records Administration. May 5, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2022.
6. ^ "Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation". Antietam National Battlefield. National Park Service. June 18, 2020. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
7. ^ "Andrew Johnson and Emancipation in Tennessee". Andrew Johnson National Historic Site. National Park Service. February 5, 2020. Retrieved March 29, 2022. "On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in states still in rebellion against the United States. Tennessee, although a seceded state, did not fall under the provisions of the proclamation. Tennessee was under Union control, and Andrew Johnson was serving as Military Governor."
8. ^ a b c d McCurry, Stephanie (2012). Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 254\. ISBN 978-0674064218.
9. ^ a b c d Ruef, Martin (2014). Between Slavery and Capitalism: The Legacy of Emancipation in the American South. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 44\. ISBN 9780691162775.
10. ^ a b Davis, Kenneth C. (2003). Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (1st ed.). New York: HarperCollins. pp. 227–228\. ISBN 978-0-06-008381-6.
11. ^ Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, vol. 6: War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (1960) pp. 231–241, 273
12. ^ Jones, Howard (1999). Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War. University of Nebraska Press. p. 151\. ISBN 0-8032-2582-2.
13. ^ "Emancipation Proclamation". History. January 6, 2020. Archived from the original on January 21, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
14. ^ "13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865)". National Archives. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
15. ^ Jean Allain (2012). The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary. Oxford University Press. p. 117\. ISBN 9780199660469.
16. ^ Foner 2010, p. 16
17. ^ Jean Allain (2012). The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary. Oxford University Press. pp. 119–120\. ISBN 9780199660469.
18. ^ Tsesis, The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History (2004), p. 14. "Nineteenth century apologists for the expansion of slavery developed a political philosophy that placed property at the pinnacle of personal interests and regarded its protection to be the government's chief purpose. The Fifth Amendment's Just Compensation Clause provided the proslavery camp with a bastion for fortifying the peculiar institution against congressional restrictions to its spread westward. Based on this property-rights-centered argument, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, in his infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision, found the Missouri Compromise unconstitutionally violated substantive due process".
19. ^ Tsesis, The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), pp. 18–23. "Constitutional protections of slavery coexisted with an entire culture of oppression. The peculiar institution reached many private aspects of human life, for both whites and blacks.... Even free Southern blacks lived in a world so legally constricted by racial domination that it offered only a deceptive shadow of freedom."
20. ^ Foner 2010, pp. 14–16
21. ^ Mackubin, Thomas Owens (March 25, 2004). "The Liberator". National Review. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012.
22. ^ Crowther, p. 651
23. ^ Fabrikant, Robert, "Emancipation and the Proclamation: Of Contrabands, Congress, and Lincoln". Howard Law Journal, vol. 49, no. 2 (2006), p. 369.
24. ^ "The Emancipation Proclamation" (transcription). United States National Archives. January 1, 1863.
25. ^ The fourth paragraph of the proclamation explains that Lincoln issued it "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".[24]
26. ^ "150 years later, myths persist about the Emancipation Proclamation". CNN. January 1, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2022.
27. ^ Irwin, Richard Bache; Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss (January 29, 1863). Promulgating the Emancipation Proclamation. General orders; no. 12. Retrieved July 26, 2023 - via HathiTrust.
28. ^ Freedmen and Southern Society Project (1982). Freedom: a documentary history of emancipation 1861–1867 : selected from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States. The destruction of slavery. CUP Archive. pp. 69. ISBN 978-0-521-22979-1.
29. ^ Foner 2010, pp. 241–242
30. ^ Hofstadter, Richard, "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth," in The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1948). online. Vintage Books edition, March 1989, p. 169.
31. ^ Similarly, Karl Marx said that the proclamation sounds like "ordinary summonses sent by one lawyer to another on the opposing side". Quoted by Allen C. Guelzo. "'Sublime in Its Magnitude': The Emancipation Proclamation", in Holzer, Harold and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, eds., Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007, pp. 65-78, quotation at p. 66.
32. ^ Freehling, William W., The South vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 118.
33. ^ "Archives of Maryland Historical List: Constitutional Convention, 1864". November 1, 1864. Archived from the original on February 20, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2011.
34. ^ "Missouri abolishes slavery". January 11, 1865. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012.
35. ^ "Tennessee State Convention: Slavery Declared Forever Abolished". The New York Times. January 14, 1865.
36. ^ "On This Day in West Virginia History – February". www.wvculture.org.
37. ^ Stauffer (2008), Giants, p. 279
38. ^ Peterson (1995), Lincoln in American Memory, pp. 38–41
39. ^ McCarthy (1901), Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction, p. 76
40. ^ Harrison, Lowell H. (1983). "Slavery in Kentucky: A Civil War Casualty". The Kentucky Review. 5 (1) (Fall ed.): 38–40.
41. ^ "Slavery in Delaware". slavenorth.com.
42. ^ Lowell Hayes Harrison and James C. Klotter (1997). A new history of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. p. 180\. ISBN 0813126215. In 1866, Kentucky refused to ratify the 13th Amendment. It did ratify it in 1976.
43. ^ Adam Goodheart (April 1, 2011). "How Slavery Really Ended in America". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
44. ^ Oakes, James, Freedom National, p. 99.
45. ^ "Living Contraband – Former Slaves in the Nation's Capital During the Civil War". Civil War Defenses of Washington. National Park Service. Retrieved June 29, 2013.
46. ^ December 3, 1861: First Annual Message: Transcript
47. ^ Striner, Richard (2006). Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery. Oxford University Press. pp. 147–148. ISBN 978-0-19-518306-1.
48. ^ "Law Enacting an Additional Article of War" (the official name of the statute).
49. ^ Mann, Lina. "The Complexities of Slavery in the Nation's Capital". White House Historical. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
50. ^ Guminski, Arnold. The Constitutional Rights, Privileges, and Immunities of the American People, page 241 (2009).
51. ^ Richardson, Theresa and Johanningmeir, Erwin. Race, ethnicity, and education, page 129 (IAP 2003).
52. ^ Montgomery, David. The Student's American History, p. 428 (Ginn & Co. 1897).
53. ^ Keifer, Joseph. Slavery and Four Years of War, p. 109 (Echo Library 2009).
54. ^ First Confiscation Act
55. ^ "The Second Confiscation Act, July 17, 1862". History.umd.edu. Archived from the original on August 6, 2008. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
56. ^ "The Second Confiscation Act, July 17, 1862". www.freedmen.umd.edu.
57. ^ Donald, David. Lincoln, p. 365 (Simon and Schuster, 1996)
58. ^ a b Holzer, Harold (2006). Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President (2nd ed.). Southern Illinois University Press. p. 162\. ISBN 978-0-8093-2686-0.
59. ^ Holzer, Harold (2006). Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President (second ed.). Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 160–161\. ISBN 978-0-8093-2686-0.
60. ^ Basler, Roy P., ed. (1953). The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. V: 1861–1862. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. pp. 388–389. ISBN 9781434477071. `{{cite book}}`: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
61. ^ a b Striner, Richard (2006). Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-19-518306-1.
62. ^ Freehling, William W. (2001). The South vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 111.
63. ^ Cohen, Henry, "Was Lincoln Disingenuous in His Greeley Letter?", The Lincoln Forum Bulletin, Issue 54, Fall 2023, pp. 8-9.
64. ^ Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5, pp. 462-463, 470, 500.
65. ^ Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5, p. 530.
66. ^ Brewster, Todd (2014). Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War. Scribner. p. 59\. ISBN 978-1451693867.
67. ^ Brewster, Todd (2014). Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War. Scribner. p. 236\. ISBN 978-1451693867.
68. ^ Guelzo 2006, p. 18
69. ^ Kolchin, Peter (1994). American Slavery: 1619–1877. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 82\. ISBN 978-0-8090-1554-2.
70. ^ "Emancipation Proclamation". Lincoln Papers. Library of Congress and Knox College. 2002. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
71. ^ Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005). Team of Rivals. New York: Blithedale Productions.
72. ^ Stahr, Walter, Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017, p. 226.
73. ^ "Preliminary Emacipation Proclamation, 1862". www.archives.gov.
74. ^ McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom, (1988), p. 557.
75. ^ Carpenter, Frank B. (1866). Six Months at the White House. Applewood Books. p. 90\. ISBN 978-1-4290-1527-1. Retrieved February 20, 2010. `{{cite book}}`: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) as reported by Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Portland Chase, September 22, 1862. Others present used the word resolution instead of vow to God.
Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 1:143, reported that Lincoln made a covenant with God that if God would change the tide of the war, Lincoln would change his policy toward slavery. See also Nicolas Parrillo, "Lincoln's Calvinist Transformation: Emancipation and War", Civil War History (September 1, 2000).
76. ^ "Bangor in Focus: Hannibal Hamlin". Bangorinfo.com. n.d. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
77. ^ "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln" edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume 6, pp. 48–49.
78. ^ Cohen, Henry, "Was Lincoln Disingenuous in His Greeley Letter?", The Lincoln Forum Bulletin, Issue 54, Fall 2023, p. 9.
79. ^ Oakes, James, Freedom National, p. 367.
80. ^ "Teaching With Documents: The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War". U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. August 15, 2016.
81. ^ "Confederate Law Authorizing the Enlistment of Black Soldiers, as Promulgated in a Military Order". CSA General Orders, No. 14. Department of History, University of Maryland. March 23, 1865. Archived from the original on March 12, 2012. Retrieved April 13, 2012.
82. ^ "Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1864)". encyclopediavirginia.org. Archived from the original on October 10, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
83. ^ "American Civil War April 1864 – History Learning Site". History Learning Site. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
84. ^ "Freedmen and Southern Society Project: Chronology of Emancipation". History.umd.edu. December 8, 2009. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
85. ^ "TSLA: This Honorable Body: African American Legislators in 19th Century Tennessee". State.tn.us. n.d. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
86. ^ "Transcript of the Proclamation". National Archives. October 6, 2015. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
87. ^ Richard Duncan, Beleaguered Winchester: A Virginia Community at War (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2007), pp. 139–40
88. ^ Ira Berlin et al., eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation 1861–1867, Vol. 1: The Destruction of Slavery (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 260
89. ^ a b William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 1861–1865 (NY: Viking Press, 2001), p. 234
90. ^ "Important From Key West", The New York Times February 4, 1863, p. 1
91. ^ a b From Our Own Correspondent (January 9, 1863). "Interesting from Port Royal". The New York Times. p. 2. `{{cite news}}`: `|author=` has generic name (help)
92. ^ "Samuel Wilkeson Jr". Buffalo Courier Express. December 8, 1889. p. 1. Retrieved September 17, 2023.
93. ^ "The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth". National Museum of African American History and Culture. June 19, 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
94. ^ James M. Paradis (2012). African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign. Scarecrow Press. p. 90\. ISBN 9780810883369.
95. ^ Kenneth L. Deutsch; Joseph Fornieri (2005). Lincoln's American Dream: Clashing Political Perspectives. Potomac Books. p. 35\. ISBN 9781597973908.
96. ^ "News from South Carolina: Negro Jubilee at Hilton Head", New York Herald, January 7, 1863, p. 5
97. ^ a b Poulter, Keith, "Slaves Immediately Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation", North & South, vol. 5, no. 1 (December 2001), p. 48.
98. ^ Epps, Henry, A Concise Chronicle History of African-American People Experience in America, SCL, 2012, p. 109
99. ^ Harris, "After the Emancipation Proclamation", p. 45
100. ^ Allen C. Guelzo (2006). Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. Simon & Schuster. pp. 107–8\. ISBN 9781416547952.
101. ^ Gallagher, Gary W., The Union War, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 142-143.
102. ^ Booker T. Washington (1907). Up From Slavery: An Autobiography. Doubleday. pp. 19-21.
103. ^ Goodheart, Adam (2011). 1861: The Civil War Awakening. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
104. ^ Jenkins, Sally, and Stauffer, John. The State of Jones. New York: Anchor Books, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7679-2946-2, p. 42.
105. ^ "Robert E. Lee on Robert H. Milroy or Emancipation," civil war memory: The Online Home of Kevin M. Levin, November 18, 2011
106. ^ Shelby Foote (1963). The Civil War: A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian. Vol. 2\. Random House.
107. ^ "Emancipation Proclamation (1863)". National Archives. May 10, 2022. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
108. ^ "Immediate Effects of the Emancipation Proclamation". Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
109. ^ Punch, Volume 43, October 18, 1862, p. 161
110. ^ "London Times Editorial". October 6, 1862. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
111. ^ "International Reaction".
112. ^ "Abe Lincoln's Last Card". October 18, 1862.
113. ^ Mitgang, Herbert (2000). Abraham Lincoln, a Press Portrait: His Life and Times from the Original Newspaper Documents of the Union, the Confederacy, and Europe. Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2062-5.
114. ^ a b Weber, Jennifer L. (2006). Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 64\. ISBN 978-0-19-530668-2.
115. ^ a b c d Weber, Jennifer L. (2006). Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 65\. ISBN 978-0-19-530668-2.
116. ^ a b c Weber, Jennifer L. (2006). Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 69\. ISBN 978-0-19-530668-2.
117. ^ "The Rebel Message: What Jefferson Davis Has to Say". New York Herald. America's Historical Newspapers. Retrieved January 4, 2012.
118. ^ "The Emancipation Proclamation: Striking a Mighty Blow to Slavery". National Museum of African American History and Culture – Smithsonian. Smithsonian. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
119. ^ Grant, Ulysses (August 23, 1863). "Letter to Abraham Lincoln". Cairo, Illinois. Archived from the original on May 3, 2014. Retrieved May 3, 2014. "I have given the subject of arming the Negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the Negro, is the heaviest blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a greatdeel about it and profess to be very angry."
120. ^ Tap, Bruce (2013). The Fort Pillow Massacre: North, South, and the Status of African Americans in the Civil War Era. Routledge.
121. ^ "January 12, 1863: Jefferson Davis responds to the Emancipation Proclamation | the Daily Dose". Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
122. ^ Lee Family Digital Archive
123. ^ McPherson, James M. (1997). For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 107. ISBN 0-19-509-023-3. OCLC 34912692. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
124. ^ McPherson, James M. (1997). For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-19-509-023-3. OCLC 34912692. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
125. ^ McPherson, James M. (1997). For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-19-509-023-3. OCLC 34912692. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
126. ^ Robert E. May (1995). "History and Mythology: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War". The Union, the Confederacy, and the Atlantic rim. Purdue University Press. pp. 29–68. ISBN 978-1-55753-061-5.
127. ^ Mack Smith, p. 72
128. ^ Quoted in James Lander (2010). Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Race, Science, and Religion. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 221\. ISBN 9780809329908.
129. ^ Kevin Phillips (2000). The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America. Basic Books. p. 493\. ISBN 9780465013708.[permanent dead link]
130. ^ Edward Hawkins Sisson (June 22, 2014). America the Great. Edward Sisson. p. 1169.
131. ^ David Keys (June 24, 2014). "Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years". The Independent.
132. ^ Paul Hendren (April 1933). "The Confederate Blockade Runners". United States Naval Institute.
133. ^ Peter G. Tsouras (March 11, 2011). "American Civil War viewpoints: It was British arms that sustained the Confederacy". Military History Matters.
134. ^ Beau Cleland. Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: Confederate Informal Diplomacy and Privatized Violence in British America During the American Civil War (Thesis). University of Calgary. p. 2\. "British resources were, in fact, essential to the rebellion's survival. In the face of a blockade that after 1861 made direct imports nearly impossible, the overwhelming majority of the arms and supplies that the Confederacy received from abroad passed through British colonies en route from Europe, usually on British-flagged ships, consigned to British merchants, and paid for with cotton that followed the same path out of Southern ports. Without the advantage provided by British (and to a far lesser extent, Spanish) colonies, the Confederacy had no prayer of military victory. The colonies were unsinkable, unassailable refuges in an enemy-controlled sea."
135. ^ Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: vol. 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (1960).
136. ^ Richter, William L. (2009). The A to Z of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Scarecrow Press. pp. 479–480\. ISBN 9780810863361.
137. ^ White, Jonathan W., "Achieving Emancipation in Maryland," in The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered, edited by Charles W. Mitchell and Jean H. Baker, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2021, p. 249.
138. ^ Missouri (1865). Journal of the Missouri state convention, held at the city of St. Louis January 6-April 10, 1865. St. Louis: Missouri Democrat. pp. 25–26. Retrieved April 13, 2022.
139. ^ Fletcher, Thomas C. (1865). Missouri's Jubilee. Jefferson City, MO: W. A. Curry, Public Printer. Retrieved April 13, 2022.
140. ^ "Census, Son of the South". sonofthesouth.net. 1860.
141. ^ Hahn, Steven (January 13, 2011). "Discovering Equality". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583.
142. ^ Dirck, Brian (September 2009). "Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery, and Act of Justice: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War, and Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment (review)". Civil War History. 55 (3): 382–385\. doi:10.1353/cwh.0.0090. S2CID 143986160.
143. ^ Guelzo 2006, p. 3
144. ^ Guelzo 2006, p. 3
145. ^ Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005
146. ^ Foner, Eric (April 9, 2000). "Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream by Lerone Bennett, Jr". Los Angeles Times Book Review. Archived from the original on October 27, 2004. (book review)
147. ^ Ashraf, Kal (March 2013). "'Editorial', American Studies in Britain" (PDF). (108: Spring 2013). British Association for American Studies. p. 2\. ISSN 1465-9956. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 23, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
148. ^ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Dr. Martin Luther King on the Emancipation Proclamation". National Park Service.
149. ^ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (August 28, 1963). "I Have A Dream". The King Center. Archived from the original on July 23, 2014. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
150. ^ Draft of Second Emancipation Proclamation
151. ^ Blight, David W. and Allison Scharfstein, "King's Forgotten Manifesto". The New York Times, May 16, 2012.
152. ^ a b Peniel E. Joseph (June 10, 2013). "Kennedy's Finest Moment". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022.
153. ^ John F. Kennedy (June 11, 1963). "237 – Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights".
154. ^ "Remarks of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson". May 30, 1963. Archived from the original on March 29, 2012.
155. ^ Lyndon B. Johnson (March 15, 1965). "We Shall Overcome".
156. ^ a b "Emancipation Proclamation Issue", Arago: people, postage & the post, Smithsonian National Postal Museum, viewed September 28, 2014
157. ^ "Episode Guide". TV Land. Archived from the original on November 13, 2013.
158. ^ "Barney Fife Explains The Emancipation Proclamation". Episode clip, The Andy Griffith Show. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013 - via YouTube.
159. ^ Scott, A. O. (November 8, 2012). "A President Engaged in a Great Civil War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
160. ^ ".5fr Centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation", Arago: people, postage & the post, Smithsonian National Postal Museum, viewed September 28, 2014

### Bibliography

[edit]

* Foner, Eric (2010). The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06618-0.
* Guelzo, Allen C. (2006). Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-9965-7.

### Primary sources

[edit]

* C. Peter Ripley, Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, Donald Yacovone, editors, Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation (1993) ISBN 0807820725

## Further reading

[edit]

Main article: Bibliography of slavery in the United States

* Belz, Herman. Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era (1978) online Archived August 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
* Biddle, Daniel R., and Murray Dubin. "'God Is Settling the Account': African American Reaction to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Jan. 2013) 137#1 57–78.
* Blackiston, Harry S. "Lincoln's Emancipation Plan." Journal of Negro History 7, no. 3 (1922): 257–277.
* Blair, William A. and Younger, Karen Fisher, eds. Lincoln's Proclamation: Emancipation Reconsidered (The University of North Carolina Press, 2009) ISBN 978-0-8078-3316-2 Review
* Carnahan, Burrus M. Act of Justice: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War (The University Press of Kentucky, 2007) ISBN 978-0-8131-2463-6
* Crowther, Edward R. "Emancipation Proclamation", in Encyclopedia of the American Civil War. Heidler, David S. and Heidler, Jeanne T. (2000) ISBN 0-393-04758-X
* Chambers Jr., Henry L. "Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Executive Power." Maryland Law Review 73 (2013): 100+ online
* Ewan, Christopher. "The Emancipation Proclamation and British Public Opinion" The Historian, Vol. 67, 2005
* Franklin, John Hope. The Emancipation Proclamation (1963) online Archived July 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
* Guelzo, Allen C. "How Abe Lincoln Lost the Black Vote: Lincoln and Emancipation in the African American Mind", Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association (2004) 25#1
* Harold Holzer, Edna Greene Medford, and Frank J. Williams. The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (Louisiana State University Press, 2006) ISBN 0-8071-3144-X
* Harold Holzer. Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Harvard University Press, 2012) ISBN 978-0-674-06440-9
* Jones, Howard. Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War (1999) online Archived June 27, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
* Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808–1915 (2003) Archived March 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
* Kennon, Donald R. and Paul Finkelman, eds. Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation (Ohio University Press, 2016)
* Kolchin, Peter, "Reexamining Southern Emancipation in Comparative Perspective," Journal of Southern History, 81#1 (Feb. 2015), 7–40.
* Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (1979), social history of the end of slavery in the Confederacy
* Mack Smith, Denis, Garibaldi (Great Lives Observed). (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1969)
* McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (2001 [3rd ed.]), esp. pp. 316–321.
* Masur, Louis P. Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union (Harvard University Press, 2012)
* Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: vol 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (1960)
* Oakes, James. Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 (W. W. Norton & Co., 2013) ISBN 978-0-393-06531-2
* Siddali, Silvana R. From Property to Person: Slavery and the Confiscation Acts, 1861–1862 (Louisiana State University Press, 2005) ISBN 0807130427
* Stauffer, John. Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (Twelve, 2008) ISBN 978-0-446-58009-0
* Syrett, John. Civil War Confiscation Acts: Failing to Reconstruct the South (2005)
* Trefousse, Hans L., et al., edited by Harold M. Hyman. Lincoln's Decision for Emancipation (J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1975) ISBN 0-397-47336-2
* Tsesis, Alexander. We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law (2008)
* Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge University Press, 2001) Archived May 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
* Vorenberg, Michael, ed. The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents (2010), primary and secondary sources

## External links

[edit]

Emancipation Proclamation at Wikipedia's sister projects

* Media from Commons
* Quotations from Wikiquote
* Texts from Wikisource
* Resources from Wikiversity
* Data from Wikidata

* A zoomable image of the Leland-Boker authorized edition of the Emancipation Proclamation held by the British Library Archived December 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
* Lesson plan on Emancipation Proclamation from EDSITEment NEH
* Text and images of the Emancipation Proclamation from the National Archives
* Online Lincoln Coloring Book for Teachers and Students
* Emancipation Proclamation and related resources at the Library of Congress
* Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Emancipation Proclamation Archived June 23, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
* First Edition Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 Harper's Weekly
* Chronology of Emancipation during the Civil War Archived October 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
* American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists, chronology of Abraham Lincoln and emancipation
* "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation"
* Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at the New York State Library – images and transcript of Lincoln's original manuscript of the preliminary proclamation
* The role of humor in presenting the Proclamation to Lincoln's Cabinet
* 1865 NY Times article – Sketch of its History by Lincoln's portrait artist
* "Emancipation, Proclamation of" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
* Webcast Discussion Archived July 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine with Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson and James Cornelius, Curator of the Lincoln Collection in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum about the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
* The Emancipation Proclamation public domain audiobook at LibriVox

* v
* t
* e

Abraham Lincoln

* 16th President of the United States (1861–1865)
* U.S. Representative for IL–7 (1847–1849)

Presidency|

* Transition
* First inauguration
* Perpetual Union
* Lincoln Bible
* Second inauguration
* Civil War
* Proclamation 80
* Confiscation Acts
* War based income tax
* Seaports blockade
* RMS Trent Affair
* Habeas Corpus suspended
* Emancipation Proclamation
* West Virginia statehood
* Overland Campaign strategy
* Hampton Roads Conference
* Tour of Richmond
* Ten percent plan
* Reconstruction
* Foreign policy
* 13th Amendment abolishing slavery
* Dakota War of 1862
* Department of the Northwest
* Homestead Act of 1862
* National Banking Acts
* Thanksgiving Day
* Fanny McCullough letter
* Birchard Letter
* Bixby letter
* National Academy of Sciences
* Department of Agriculture
* Pardons
* State of the Union Address, 1863
* 1864
* Cabinet
* Judicial appointments

Speeches|

* Lyceum address (1838)
* Peoria speech (1854)
* "Lost Speech" (1856)
* House Divided speech (1858)
* Lincoln–Douglas debates (1858)
* Cooper Union Address (1860)
* Farewell Address (1861)
* First inaugural address (1861)
* Gettysburg Address (1863, event)
* Second inaugural address (1865)

Life
and views|

* Early life and career
* Black Hawk War
* Matson Trial
* Spot Resolutions
* Boat lifting patent
* Hurd v. Rock Island Bridge Co.
* Baltimore Plot
* Lincoln's beard
* Medical and mental health
* Poetry
* Political career, 1849–1861
* Religious views
* Sexuality
* Slavery

Homes
and places|

* Lincoln Birthplace
* Knob Creek Farm
* Lincoln Boyhood Memorial
* Lincoln State Park
* Little Pigeon Creek Community
* Lincoln Trail Homestead State Memorial
* Lincoln's New Salem
* Lincoln-Berry General Store
* Lincoln Home
* Cottage at the Soldier's Home
* Lincoln Bedroom
* Lincoln Sitting Room
* Lincoln Pioneer Village
* Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site

Elections|

* Republican National Convention, 1856
* 1860
* 1864
* National Union Party
* 1860 United States presidential election
* 1864
* 1860 campaign song

Assassination|

* Ford's Theater
* Our American Cousin
* opera
* John Wilkes Booth
* "Sic semper tyrannis"
* Petersen House
* State funeral
* Lincoln catafalque
* Lincoln Tomb
* "O Captain! My Captain!"
* "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

Legacy and
memorials|

* Presidential Library and Museum
* Papers
* Lincoln/Net
* Artifacts and relics
* Bibliography
* Birthday
* Photographs of Lincoln
* Cultural depictions
* films
* Art
* Currency
* Illinois Centennial half dollar
* Lincoln penny
* Five-dollar bill
* Mount Rushmore Anniversary coins
* Postage stamps
* Abraham Lincoln Association
* Abraham Lincoln Institute
* Association of Lincoln Presenters
* USS Abraham Lincoln (1960,
* 1988)
* Here I Grew Up mosaic
* Lincoln Highway
* Lincoln, Nebraska
* Lincoln Park (Chicago)
* Lincoln Park (D.C.)
* Lincoln Prize
* Lincoln Heritage Trail
* Lincoln Trail State Memorial
* Mount Abraham
* Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences
* Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
* White House ghost

| Statues|

* Lincoln Memorial
* statue
* reflecting pool
* Mount Rushmore
* Abraham Lincoln: The Man
* Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State
* Lincoln the Lawyer
* Young Abe Lincoln
* Emancipation Memorial
* Brooklyn relief
* Cincinnati
* D.C. City Hall
* Hodgenville, Kentucky
* Indianapolis relief
* Laramie, Wyoming
* Lincoln, Nebraska
* Los Angeles
* Louisville, Kentucky
* Newark, New Jersey
* New York City
* Parliament Square, London
* Philadelphia
* Rochester
* U.S. Capitol bust
* U.S. Capitol statue
* Wabash, Indiana

|

Family|

* Family tree
* Mary Todd Lincoln (wife)
* Robert Todd Lincoln (son)
* Edward Baker Lincoln (son)
* William Wallace Lincoln (son)
* Thomas "Tad" Lincoln III (son)
* Mary Todd "Mamie" Lincoln (granddaughter)
* Jessie Harlan Lincoln (granddaughter)
* Thomas Lincoln (father)
* Nancy Hanks Lincoln (mother)
* Sarah Bush Lincoln (stepmother)
* Sarah Lincoln Grigsby (sister)
* Abraham Lincoln (grandfather)
* Mordecai Lincoln (uncle)
* Mary Lincoln Crume (aunt)
* John Hanks (cousin)
* Joseph Hanks (great-grandfather)
* Samuel Lincoln (17th-century ancestor)
* Mary Lincoln Beckwith (great-granddaughter)
* Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (great-grandson)
* Old Bob (horse)
* Fido (dog)

* ← James Buchanan
* Andrew Johnson →

* Category
* Outline

* v
* t
* e

Slavery in the United States

States|

* Alabama
* Alaska
* Arizona
* Arkansas
* California
* Colorado
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Florida
* Georgia
* Hawaii
* Idaho
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Iowa
* Kansas
* Kentucky
* Louisiana
* Maine
* Maryland
* Massachusetts
* Michigan
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* Missouri
* Montana
* Nebraska
* Nevada
* New Hampshire
* New Jersey
* New Mexico
* New York
* North Carolina
* North Dakota
* Ohio
* Oklahoma
* Oregon
* Pennsylvania
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* South Dakota
* Tennessee
* Texas
* Utah
* Vermont
* Virginia
* Washington
* West Virginia
* Wisconsin
* Wyoming

Federal district|

District of Columbia

Territories|

* Puerto Rico
* U.S. Virgin Islands

Topics|

| History|

* Slavery among Native Americans
* Slavery in New Spain
* Slavery in New France
* Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
* Indentured servitude in British America
* Slave trade in the United States
* Slave markets and slave jails in the United States
* Kidnapping into slavery in the United States
* Slave states and free states
* Slave labor on United States military installations 1799–1863
* Slavery at American colleges and universities
* Glossary
* Bibliography

|

Cultural and
social history|

* American proslavery movement
* Slavery as a positive good in the United States
* Treatment
* Health
* Mandatory illiteracy
* Education during the slave period
* Slave quarters
* Domestic slave trade
* List of American slave traders
* Runaway slave ad
* Slave catcher
* Abolitionism
* Underground Railroad
* Freedmen's towns
* Black Canadians
* List of abolitionists
* African American founding fathers
* Plantations
* Field slaves
* Gang system
* Task system
* Planter class
* List of plantations
* Amerindian slave ownership
* African-American slave owners
* American Colonization Society
* Slave narrative

Law and politics|

* Slavery and the United States Constitution
* American slave court cases
* Freedom suits
* Fugitive Slave Clause
* Three-fifths Compromise
* Slave and free states
* History of slavery by U.S. state
* Fugitive slaves
* Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
* Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves (1808)
* Gag rule (1836–1840)
* Nullifier Party
* Fire-Eaters
* Movement to reopen the transatlantic slave trade
* Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
* Partus sequitur ventrem
* Dred Scott v. Sandford
* Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution
* Presidents and slavery
* George Washington and slavery
* Thomas Jefferson and slavery
* James Madison and slavery
* John Quincy Adams and abolitionism
* John Tyler and slavery
* Zachary Taylor and slavery
* Abraham Lincoln and slavery
* Andrew Johnson and slavery
* Vice presidents
* Members of Congress
* Supreme Court Justices

Marriage,
sexual slavery
and procreation|

* Sexual slavery
* Female slavery
* Sexual relations and rape
* Slave breeding
* Slave marriages
* Plaçage
* Children of the plantation
* Shadow family

Civil War and after|

* Origins of the American Civil War
* Slavery during the American Civil War
* End of slavery in the United States
* Compensated emancipation
* Contraband
* Colored Troops
* Emancipation Proclamation
* Juneteenth
* Reconstruction era
* Radical Republicans
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Civil rights movement (1865–1896)
* Family reunification ads after emancipation
* Freedmen's town
* list

* v
* t
* e

Juneteenth

Key people|

* Ben Haith
* Gordon Granger
* Opal Lee

Key locations|

* Oregon
* Texas

Symbols|

* Juneteenth flag
* Pan-African flag

Governmental recognition|

* General Order No. 3
* Juneteenth National Independence Day Act

In popular culture|

* Jubilee: Juneteenth Edition
* Juneteenth (Atlanta)
* Juneteenth (novel)
* Miss Juneteenth

Related topics|

* Abolitionism in the United States
* Emancipation Proclamation
* Emancipation Day
* End of slavery in the United States of America

Civil rights movement portal

* v
* t
* e

American Civil War

Origins

* Origins

* Timeline leading to the War
* Bleeding Kansas
* Border states
* Compromise of 1850
* John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
* Kansas-Nebraska Act
* Lincoln–Douglas debates
* Missouri Compromise
* Nullification crisis
* Origins of the American Civil War
* Panic of 1857
* Popular sovereignty
* Secession
* South Carolina Declaration of Secession
* States' rights
* Proclamation 80

|

Slavery|

* African Americans
* Cornerstone Speech
* Crittenden Compromise
* Dred Scott v. Sandford
* Emancipation Proclamation
* Fire-Eaters
* Fugitive slave laws
* Plantations in the American South
* Positive good
* Slave Power
* Slavery in the United States
* Treatment of slaves in the United States
* Uncle Tom's Cabin

Abolitionism|

* Abolitionism in the United States
* Susan B. Anthony
* James G. Birney
* John Brown
* Frederick Douglass
* William Lloyd Garrison
* Lane Debates on Slavery
* Elijah Parish Lovejoy
* J. Sella Martin
* Lysander Spooner
* George Luther Stearns
* Thaddeus Stevens
* Charles Sumner
* Caning
* Harriet Tubman
* Underground Railroad

* Combatants
* Theaters
* Campaigns
* Battles
* States

| Combatants|

| Union|

* Army
* Navy
* Marine Corps
* Revenue Cutter Service

|

Confederacy|

* Army
* Navy
* Marine Corps

Theaters|

* Eastern
* Western
* Lower Seaboard
* Trans-Mississippi
* Pacific Coast
* Union naval blockade

Major campaigns|

* Anaconda Plan
* Blockade runners
* New Mexico
* Jackson's Valley
* Peninsula
* Northern Virginia
* Maryland
* Stones River
* Vicksburg
* Tullahoma
* Gettysburg
* Morgan's Raid
* Bristoe
* Knoxville
* Red River
* Overland
* Atlanta
* Valley 1864
* Bermuda Hundred
* Richmond-Petersburg
* Franklin–Nashville
* Price's Missouri Expedition
* Sherman's March
* Carolinas
* Mobile
* Appomattox

Major battles|

* Fort Sumter
* 1st Bull Run
* Wilson's Creek
* Fort Donelson
* Pea Ridge
* Hampton Roads
* Shiloh
* New Orleans
* Corinth
* Seven Pines
* Seven Days
* 2nd Bull Run
* Antietam
* Perryville
* Fredericksburg
* Stones River
* Chancellorsville
* Gettysburg
* Vicksburg
* Chickamauga
* Chattanooga
* Wilderness
* Fort Pillow
* Spotsylvania
* Cold Harbor
* Atlanta
* Crater
* Mobile Bay
* Franklin
* Nashville
* Five Forks

Involvement|

| States and
territories|

* Alabama
* Arkansas
* Arizona
* California
* Colorado
* Connecticut
* Dakota Territory
* District of Columbia
* Delaware
* Florida
* Georgia
* Hawaii
* Idaho
* Illinois
* Indian Territory
* Indiana
* Iowa
* Kansas
* Kentucky
* Louisiana
* Maine
* Maryland
* Massachusetts
* Michigan
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* Missouri
* Montana
* Nebraska
* Nevada
* New Hampshire
* New Jersey
* New Mexico
* New York
* North Carolina
* Ohio
* Oregon
* Pennsylvania
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* Tennessee
* Texas
* Utah
* Vermont
* Virginia
* Washington
* West Virginia
* Wisconsin

|

Cities|

* Atlanta
* Charleston
* Chattanooga
* New Orleans
* Richmond
* Washington, D.C.
* Winchester

Leaders

| Confederate|

| Military|

* R. H. Anderson
* Beauregard
* Bragg
* Buchanan
* Cooper
* Early
* Ewell
* Forrest
* Gorgas
* Hill
* Hood
* Jackson
* A. S. Johnston
* J. E. Johnston
* Lee
* Longstreet
* Morgan
* Mosby
* Polk
* Price
* Semmes
* E. K. Smith
* Stuart
* Taylor
* Wheeler

|

Civilian|

* Benjamin
* Bocock
* Breckinridge
* Davis
* Hunter
* Mallory
* Memminger
* Seddon
* Stephens

Union|

| Military|

* Anderson
* Buell
* Burnside
* Butler
* Du Pont
* Farragut
* Foote
* Frémont
* Grant
* Halleck
* Hooker
* Hunt
* McClellan
* McDowell
* Meade
* Meigs
* Ord
* Pope
* D. D. Porter
* Rosecrans
* Scott
* Sheridan
* Sherman
* Thomas

|

Civilian|

* Adams
* Chase
* Ericsson
* Hamlin
* Lincoln
* Pinkerton
* Seward
* Stanton
* Stevens
* Wade
* Welles

Aftermath

| Constitution|

* Reconstruction Amendments
* 13th Amendment
* 14th Amendment
* 15th Amendment

|

Reconstruction|

* Alabama Claims
* Brooks–Baxter War
* Carpetbaggers
* Colfax riot of 1873
* Compromise of 1877
* Confederate refugees
* Confederados
* Eufaula riot of 1874
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Freedman's Savings Bank
* Homestead Acts
* Southern Homestead Act of 1866
* Timber Culture Act of 1873
* Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
* trial
* efforts
* timeline
* first inquiry
* second inquiry
* impeachment managers investigation
* Kirk–Holden war
* Knights of the White Camelia
* Ku Klux Klan
* Ethnic violence
* Memphis riots of 1866
* Meridian riot of 1871
* New Orleans riot of 1866
* Pulaski (Tennessee) riot of 1867
* South Carolina riots of 1876
* Reconstruction acts
* Habeas Corpus Act of 1867
* Enforcement Act of 1870
* Enforcement Act of February 1871
* Enforcement Act of April 1871
* Reconstruction era
* Reconstruction military districts
* Reconstruction Treaties
* Indian Council at Fort Smith
* Red Shirts
* Redeemers
* Scalawags
* South Carolina riots of 1876
* Southern Claims Commission
* White League

Post-
Reconstruction|

* Commemoration
* Centennial
* Civil War Discovery Trail
* Civil War Roundtables
* Civil War Trails Program
* Civil War Trust
* Confederate History Month
* Confederate Memorial Day
* Decoration Day
* Historical reenactment
* Robert E. Lee Day
* Confederate Memorial Hall
* Disenfranchisement
* Black Codes
* Jim Crow
* Historiographic issues
* Lost Cause mythology
* Modern display of the Confederate flag
* Red Shirts
* Sons of Confederate Veterans
* Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
* Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War
* National Society Daughters of the Union 1861-1865
* Southern Historical Society
* United Confederate Veterans
* United Daughters of the Confederacy
* Children of the Confederacy
* Wilmington insurrection of 1898

Monuments
and memorials|

| Union|

* List
* Grand Army of the Republic
* memorials to Lincoln

|

Confederate|

* List
* artworks in Capitol
* memorials to Davis
* memorials to Lee
* Removal

Cemeteries|

* Ladies' Memorial Associations
* U.S. national cemeteries

Veterans|

* 1913 Gettysburg reunion
* 1938 Gettysburg reunion
* Confederate Memorial Hall
* Confederate Veteran
* Grand Army of the Republic
* Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S.
* Old soldiers' homes
* Southern Cross of Honor
* United Confederate Veterans

* Related topics

| Military|

* Arms
* Armies
* Campaign Medal
* Cavalry
* Confederate Home Guard
* Confederate railroads
* Confederate revolving cannon
* Field artillery
* Infantry
* Medal of Honor recipients
* Medicine
* Naval battles
* Official Records
* Partisan rangers
* POW camps
* Rations
* Signal Corps
* Turning point
* Union corps badges
* U.S. Balloon Corps
* U.S. Home Guard
* U.S. Military Railroad

|

Political|

* Committee on the Conduct of the War
* Confederate States presidential election of 1861
* Confiscation Act of 1861
* Confiscation Act of 1862
* Copperheads
* Diplomacy
* Emancipation Proclamation
* Habeas Corpus Act of 1863
* Hampton Roads Conference
* National Union Party
* Politicians killed
* Radical Republicans
* Trent Affair
* Union Leagues
* U.S. Presidential Election of 1864
* War Democrats

Music|

* Battle Hymn of the Republic
* Dixie
* John Brown's Body
* A Lincoln Portrait
* Marching Through Georgia
* Maryland, My Maryland
* Names from the War
* When Johnny Comes Marching Home
* Daar kom die Alibama

By ethnicity|

* African Americans
* German Americans
* Irish Americans
* Italian Americans
* Native Americans
* Catawba
* Cherokee
* Choctaw
* Seminole

Other topics|

* Baltimore riot of 1861
* Battlefield preservation
* Bibliography
* Confederate war finance
* Confederate States dollar
* Espionage
* Confederate Secret Service
* Great Hanging at Gainesville
* Great Revival of 1863
* Gender issues
* Juneteenth
* Naming the war
* New York City Gold Hoax of 1864
* New York City riots of 1863
* Photographers
* Richmond riots of 1863
* Salt
* Supreme Court cases
* Tokens
* U.S. Sanitary Commission
* Women soldiers

Related|

* List of films and television shows about the American Civil War

* Category
* Portal

* v
* t
* e

Reconstruction era

Participants|

Federal government

* Presidents
* Abraham Lincoln
* Andrew Johnson
* Ulysses S. Grant
* Rutherford B. Hayes

* Congress
* 38
* 39
* 40
* 41
* 42
* 43
* 44
* 45
* Radical Republicans
* Moderate Republicans
* Conservative Republicans
* African-American senators
* African-American representatives
* Reconstruction Amendments
* United States Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction
* United States House Select Committee on Reconstruction

* Federal judiciary
* Taney Court
* Chase Court
* Waite Court

* Federal bureaucracy
* Edwin Stanton
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Justice Department

|

State governments

* Southern United States
* Confederate States of America

Others|

* African Americans
* Free people of color
* Freedman
* Politicians
* Carpetbaggers
* Ku Klux Klan
* Scalawag
* Redeemers
* White League
* Red Shirts
* Democratic Party
* Bourbon Democrat
* Horatio Seymour
* Samuel J. Tilden
* Republican Party
* Stalwarts
* Charles Sumner
* Thaddeus Stevens
* Lyman Trumbull
* Benjamin Wade
* John Bingham
* James Mitchell Ashley
* Freedman's Savings Bank
* Women during the Reconstruction era

Elections|

Presidential

* 1864
* DNC
* National Union Convention
* Radical Democratic Party

* 1868
* DNC
* RNC

* 1872
* DNC
* RNC
* Liberal Republican Party
* Straight-Out Democratic Party
* Victoria Woodhull

* 1876
* DNC
* RNC
* Greenback Convention
* Prohibition Convention
* Electoral Commission
* Compromise of 1877

|

U.S. Senate|

* 1864–65
* 1866–67
* 1868–69
* 1870–71
* 1872–73
* 1874–75
* 1876–77

U.S. House|

* 1864–65
* 1866–67
* 1868–69
* 1870–71
* 1872–73
* 1874–75
* 1876–77

Gubernatorial|

* 1863
* Alabama
* California
* Connecticut
* Kentucky
* Massachusetts
* Minnesota
* New Hampshire
* Ohio
* Pennsylvania
* Virginia
* Vermont
* Wisconsin
* West Virginia

* 1864
* Connecticut
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Louisiana
* Maryland
* Massachusetts
* Michigan
* Missouri
* New Hampshire
* Vermont
* West Virginia

* 1865
* Connecticut
* Florida
* Louisiana
* Massachusetts
* Minnesota
* New Jersey
* Ohio
* South Carolina
* Vermont
* Wisconsin

* 1866
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Michigan
* North Carolina
* Oregon
* Pennsylvania
* Texas
* Vermont
* West Virginia

* 1867
* California
* Connecticut
* Kentucky
* Massachusetts
* Maryland
* Maine
* Minnesota
* Ohio
* Vermont
* Wisconsin

* 1868
* Alabama
* Connecticut
* Florida
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Kentucky (special)
* Louisiana
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Michigan
* Missouri
* North Carolina
* New Jersey
* South Carolina
* Vermont
* West Virginia

* 1869
* Connecticut
* Iowa
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* Ohio
* Pennsylvania
* Rhode Island
* Virginia
* Vermont
* Wisconsin

* 1870
* Alabama
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Michigan
* Missouri
* Oregon
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* Vermont
* West Virginia

* 1871
* California
* Connecticut
* Iowa
* Kentucky
* Massachusetts
* Maryland
* Maine
* Minnesota
* New Jersey
* Ohio
* Rhode Island
* Wisconsin

* 1872
* Alabama
* Connecticut
* Florida
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Louisiana
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Michigan
* Missouri
* North Carolina
* Pennsylvania
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* Vermont
* West Virginia

* 1873
* Connecticut
* Iowa
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* Ohio
* Texas
* Virginia
* Wisconsin

* 1874
* Alabama
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Kansas
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Michigan
* Missouri
* New Jersey
* Nevada
* Oregon
* South Carolina
* Vermont

* 1875
* California
* Connecticut
* Iowa
* Kentucky
* Massachusetts
* Maryland
* Maine
* Minnesota
* Ohio
* Ohio
* Wisconsin

* 1876
* Alabama
* Colorado
* Connecticut April
* Connecticut November
* Florida
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Kansas
* Louisiana
* Massachusetts
* Maine
* Michigan
* Missouri
* North Carolina
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* Vermont
* West Virginia

U.S. elections|

* 1864
* 1866
* 1868
* 1870
* 1872
* 1874
* 1876

Key events|

| Prelude|

* American Indian Wars
* Slavery in the United States
* A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
* The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838)
* Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1839)
* Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
* National Women's Rights Convention (1850)
* American Civil War
* Confiscation Act of 1861
* Confiscation Act of 1862
* District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act (1862)
* Militia Act of 1862

|

1863|

* Emancipation Proclamation
* General Order No. 143
* Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction
* Ten percent plan
* National Bank Act
* Women's Loyal National League
* New York City draft riots
* 1863 State of the Union Address

1864|

* Wade–Davis Bill
* 1864 elections
* 1864 State of the Union Address

1865|

* 13th Amendment
* Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln
* Address
* Black Codes
* Special Field Orders No. 15
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Freedmen's Bureau bills
* Confederates surrender at Appomattox
* Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
* Shaw University
* New Departure
* 1865 State of the Union Address
* Founding of the Ku Klux Klan

1866|

* Civil Rights Act of 1866
* Memphis massacre of 1866
* New Orleans Massacre of 1866
* Swing Around the Circle
* Southern Homestead Act of 1866
* Fort Smith Conference and Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866
* Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty of Washington of 1866
* Tennessee readmitted to Union
* Petition for Universal Freedom
* National Labor Union
* Ex parte Garland
* Ex parte Milligan
* Slave Kidnapping Act of 1866

* 1866 elections

1867|

* Tenure of Office Act
* Command of Army Act
* Indian Peace Commission
* Knights of the White Camelia
* Pulaski riot
* Reconstruction Acts
* Reconstruction military districts
* Constitutional conventions of 1867
* Habeas Corpus Act of 1867
* Peonage Act of 1867
* First impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson
* 1867 State of the Union Address

1868|

* 14th Amendment
* Second impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson
* Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
* Timeline
* Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson
* Impeachment managers investigation
* Articles of impeachment
* Arkansas readmitted to Union
* Florida readmitted to Union
* North Carolina readmitted to Union
* South Carolina readmitted to Union
* Louisiana readmitted to Union
* Alabama readmitted to Union
* Opelousas massacre
* Fourth Reconstruction Act
* Georgia v. Stanton
* 1868 elections
* 1868 State of the Union Address

1869|

* National Woman Suffrage Association
* American Woman Suffrage Association
* Alabama Claims
* Proposed annexation of Santo Domingo
* Board of Indian Commissioners
* Public Credit Act of 1869
* Black Friday (1869)
* Ex parte McCardle
* First transcontinental railroad
* 1869 State of the Union Address

1870|

* 15th Amendment
* Enforcement Act of 1870
* Justice Department
* Naturalization Act of 1870
* Kirk–Holden war
* Shoffner Act
* 1870 elections
* 1870 State of the Union Address

1871|

* Ku Klux Klan hearings
* Second Enforcement Act
* Ku Klux Klan Act
* Alcorn State University
* Meridian race riot of 1871
* Treaty of Washington
* New York custom house ring
* Civil service commission
* United States expedition to Korea
* 1871 State of the Union Address

1872|

* General Mining Act of 1872
* Crédit Mobilier scandal
* Modoc War
* Star Route scandal
* Salary Grab Act
* Amnesty Act
* 1872 elections
* 1872 State of the Union Address

1873|

* Panic of 1873
* Colfax massacre
* Timber Culture Act
* Slaughter-House Cases
* Virginius Affair
* Coinage Act of 1873
* Long Depression
* Comstock laws
* 1873 State of the Union Address

1874|

* Brooks–Baxter War
* Battle of Liberty Place
* Coushatta massacre
* Red River War
* Timber Culture Act
* White League
* Election Massacre of 1874
* Vicksburg massacre
* Black Hills Gold Rush
* Sanborn incident
* Anti-Moiety Acts
* 1874 elections
* 1874 State of the Union Address

1875|

* United States v. Cruikshank
* Civil Rights Act of 1875
* Red Shirts
* Mississippi Plan
* Clifton Riot of 1875
* Yazoo City Riot of 1875
* Specie Payment Resumption Act
* Whiskey Ring
* Wheeler Compromise
* Delano affair
* Pratt & Boyd
* 1875 State of the Union Address

1876|

* Hamburg massacre
* South Carolina civil disturbances of 1876
* Ellenton massacre
* Great Sioux War of 1876
* Battle of the Little Bighorn
* United States v. Reese
* Trader post scandal
* Centennial Exposition
* Cattellism
* Safe burglary conspiracy
* 1876 elections
* 1876 State of the Union Address

1877|

* Electoral Commission
* Compromise of 1877
* Nez Perce War
* Desert Land Act
* Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Aftermath|

* Posse Comitatus Act (1878)
* Civil Rights Cases (1883)
* United States v. Harris (1883)
* Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
* Williams v. Mississippi (1898)
* Wilmington massacre
* Giles v. Harris (1903)
* Disenfranchisement

Aspects|

| Historiography|

* Bibliography of the Reconstruction era
* James Shepherd Pike
* The Prostrate State (1874)
* James Bryce
* The American Commonwealth (1888)
* Claude G. Bowers
* The Tragic Era (1929)
* Columbia University
* John Burgess
* Walter L. Fleming
* Dunning School
* William Archibald Dunning
* Charles A. Beard
* Howard K. Beale
* W. E. B. Du Bois
* Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
* C. Vann Woodward
* Joel Williamson
* William R. Brock
* The American Crisis (1963)
* John Hope Franklin
* From Slavery to Freedom (1947)
* After Slavery (1965)
* Leon Litwack
* Been in the Storm So Long (1979)
* Eric Foner
* Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988)
* Kenneth M. Stampp
* Steven Hahn
* A Nation Under Our Feet (2003)
* The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019)

|

Memory|

* Winslow Homer
* A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876)
* Thomas Dixon Jr.
* The Leopard's Spots (1902)
* The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905)
* D. W. Griffith
* The Birth of a Nation (1915)
* United Daughters of the Confederacy
* Gone with the Wind (1939)
* David W. Blight
* Race and Reunion (2001)

Legacy|

* Women's suffrage in the United States
* Labor history of the United States
* Gilded Age
* Jim Crow era
* Civil rights movement
* American frontier

Other topics|

* African American founding fathers of the United States
* Forty acres and a mule
* Habeas corpus
* History of the United States (1865–1917)
* Paramilitary
* Race (human categorization)
* Reconstruction Treaties
* Suffrage
* Technological and industrial history of the United States
* White supremacy
* Whitecapping

* Category

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* Germany
* United States
* Israel

Other|

* NARA

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[…]: whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
*[c.]: circa