Embedded Files
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
Lincoln's Hesitations
Losing Northern Support
President Lincoln disliked slavery, but at first he didn't feel like it was wise to make the Civil War a fight to end slavery. He was concerned that while people in the North would support a war to save the United States, they might not support a war to end slavery or be willing to give up their lives to end it.
The Border States
At the beginning of the Civil War, five slave states decided to stay in the United States and not join the Confederacy. Those states are shown in yellow on the map. Lincoln was concerned that freeing the slaves in these states might cause the border states to join the South.
Supporters of Making the Civil War a War to End Slavery
Frederick Douglas
Escaped slave and abolitionist speaker
Horace Greeley
Newspaper editor
These men argued that the Civil War should be fought to end slavery for several reasons:
Slavery was morally wrong and needed to be stopped or abolished
Slavery was the cause of the differences between the North and the South that started the Civil War
Both Britain and France wanted Southern cotton and might support the South in the war to make sure they could still get the cotton. But the people of both France and Britain were strongly against slavery. If Lincoln declared that the Civil War was being fought to end slavery, these countries would be less likely to support the South
President Lincoln Decides to Free the Slaves
President Lincoln did not believe that the United States Constitution gave him the power to end slavery, but he knew that it gave him the power to take property from enemies during war. Since the U.S. Supreme Court had declared that slaves were property, Lincoln decided that he could legally free the slaves in the South.
On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation. It freed all slaves in the South, but it did not free slaves in the border states that supported the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free any slaves because President Lincoln could not yet enforce it in the South. But if the United States won the Civil War, it would mean that slavery would end in the United States.
The Full Text of The Emancipation Proclamation
January 1, 1863
A Transcription
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
The Gettysburg Address
Lincoln can be found in the center of this photograph taken at Gettysburg. He is looking down to our left.
The Dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - November 19, 1863
Four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln was invited to speak at the dedication of a national cemetery on the site of the battle.
The speaker before him, Edward Everett, spoke for two hours. President Lincoln spoke for two minutes.
His 272 word speech has become known as The Gettysburg Address and it is considered to be one of the greatest American speeches.
In this speech, President Lincoln expands Thomas Jefferson's words "all men are created equal" and expanded them to truly include all men, regardless of race.
The Full Text of The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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