Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation:
January
1, 1863
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.
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On Jan. 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves
residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This
Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to
slaves in border states fighting on the Union side; nor did it affect
slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Naturally, the
states in rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation
did show Americans-- and the world--that the civil war was now being
fought to end slavery.
Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A believer in white
supremacy, he initially viewed the war only in terms of preserving the
Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country,
however, Lincoln became more sympathetic to the idea. On Sept. 22, 1862,
he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would
become effective on Jan. 1, 1863, in those states still in rebellion.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in
America--this was achieved by the passage of the 13TH Amendment to the
Constitution on Dec. 18, 1865--it did make that accomplishment a basic war
goal and a virtual certainty.
DOUGLAS T. MILLER
Bibliography: Commager, Henry Steele, The Great Proclamation (1960);
Donovan, Frank, Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation (1964); Franklin, John Hope,
ed., The Emancipation Proclamation (1964).
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Emancipation Proclamation, proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, declaring all "slaves within any State, or designated part of a State ... then ... in rebellion, ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." The states affected were enumerated in the proclamation; specifically exempted were slaves in parts of the South then held by Union armies. Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation marked a radical change in his policy; historians regard it as one of the great state documents of the United States.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, the slavery issue was made acute by the flight to Union lines of large numbers of slaves who volunteered to fight for their freedom and that of their fellow slaves. In these circumstances, a strict application of established policy would have required return of fugitive slaves to their Confederate masters and would have alienated the staunchest supporters of the Union cause in the North and abroad.
Finally, after the Union victory in the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, declaring his intention of promulgating another proclamation in 100 days, freeing the slaves in the states deemed in rebellion at that time. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, conferring liberty on about 3,120,000 slaves. With the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in effect in 1865, slavery was completely abolished.
The results of the Emancipation Proclamation were far-reaching. From then on, sympathy with the Confederacy was identified with support of slavery. Antislavery sentiment in France and Britain, whose governments were friendly to the Confederacy, became so strong that it precluded the possibility of intervention by those governments in behalf of the Confederacy. As a further result of the proclamation, the Republican party became unified in principle and in organization, and the prestige it attained enabled it to hold power until 1884.
SO AS A FINAL REMINDER
THE CIVIL WAR WAS NOT ABOUT SLAVERY
and the CONFEDERATE FLAG does not stand for
SLAVERY
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