Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was written by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862. The document was meant to coerce the 11 Confederate states (Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana—except the certain parishes that were specifically indicated in the document and the city of New Orleans—South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia) that were in succession and in rebellion to stop fighting and return to the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation threatened freedom of the slaves in the 11 rebelling states while protecting slavery in the four slave states (West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri) that remained loyal to the Union. The document gave the 11 states in rebellion 100 days to return to the Union or the Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect on January 1, 1863, implying that if the rebellion states had conceded to the specific demands written in the Emancipation Proclamation, the document would not have been issued.

President Lincoln indicated in the Emancipation Proclamation that it was being issued as “a fit and necessary measure to end the said rebellion.” The Emancipation Proclamation was used as a tool by President Lincoln and the Union to reunite the country; the document was not written to end slavery in the United States, in part because slavery was protected by the Constitution and only a constitutional amendment could end it. The Thirteenth Amendment, ending [Page 522]involuntary service except under specific conditions, was ratified to the Constitution in 1865. In effect the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States after the Civil War ended.

President Lincoln was aware of the question of whether it was legal for the president to abolish slavery. In the Emancipation Proclamation, the president argued that the power to issue the document was derived from the constitutional authority granted to the office of the presidency as commander and chief of the army and navy in a time of actual armed rebellion against the government of the United States. The president implicitly made the argument that this action could be taken in the absence of a constitutional amendment.

The closing paragraphs of the Emancipation Proclamation state: “And upon this act 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.” These words indicate the President Lincoln was making a case that this document was the right thing to do, as either a response to his critics or explanation for conflicted feelings he may have had for his actions. To which he was responding remains unclear, but it is certain that there are few if any historical documents in U.S. history that have come to represent and mis-represent so much to so many.