1862: Lincoln Announces the Emancipation Proclamation
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On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln informed his cabinet that the following day he would announce the Emancipation Proclamation. Having made a pact with God to issue the declaration upon a northern victory at Antietam, he believed the Union victory at Sharpsburg to be a sign that God supported the cause of slave liberation.[1] The proclamation was not immediately enacted in September of 1862, rather the C.S.A had until the first of January, 1863 to reach an armistice. If the Rebels failed to lay down their arms, then Lincoln would have no choice but to issue the Proclamation.[2] The Emancipation Proclamation was an ultimatum for the Confederacy, and called for, “the immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery…” within states of rebellion.[3] Of prominence is the notion that Lincoln intended this to be only a war-time measure, one that would be enacted to cripple the southern economy, and would have most likely been revoked upon northern victory.[4] Public opinion held that if the Confederacy did not lay down their arms before January, then this proclamation would mark, “…the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.”[5] Lincoln was met with opposition from the Democrats, Unionists and even his own General McClellan who opposed the liberation of some four million blacks and their potential impact upon a post-war society.[6] With Lincoln’s proposed emancipation, the conflict turned from one of civil strife to a war of liberation. [7]
Related Events
1863: Emancipation Proclamation
1865: Thirteenth Amendment Passed
1870: Fifteenth Amendment ratified
Sources
[1] James M. McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided to Issue the Emancipation Proclamation” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education > No. 37 (Autumn, 2002), 108-109. JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1077-3711%28200223%290%3A37%3C108%3AHPLDTI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W. Accessed 14 November 2006.
[2] Matthew Pinsker, American President Reference Series: Abraham Lincoln, (Washington, Dickinson College: CQ Press, 2002), 131.
[3] Brooklyn, New York, Circular, 25 September 1862. Online.
[4] New York, New York, New York Observer and Chronicle, 2 October 1862. Online.
[5] Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Tribune, 24 September 1862. Online.
[6] Ibid.; James M. McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided to Issue the Emancipation Proclamation” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education > No. 37 (Autumn, 2002), 109. JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1077-3711%28200223%290%3A37%3C108%3AHPLDTI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W. Accessed 14 November 2006.
[7] James M. McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided to Issue the Emancipation Proclamation” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education > No. 37 (Autumn, 2002),109. JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1077-3711%28200223%290%3A37%3C108%3AHPLDTI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W. Accessed 14 November 2006.