How did the Emancipation Proclamation change the meaning of the Civil War

This article is a part of our series on Abraham Lincoln. Click here to view the rest of the installments.

But Lincoln’s primary goal in going to war was to save the Union, slavery or not. The Emancipation Proclamation changed the equation.

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861. Though Lincoln morally opposed slavery, he avoided any public comments connecting the war and the rights of slaves. He was concerned more with acting constitutionally and a swift victory to prevent the Union from dissolving.

Once the war began, northern armies refused the service of black men, in spite of a rush to enlist. The South, on the other hand, took full advantage of slave labor in factories, military hospitals, and other Confederate war efforts.

An Executive Decision

The war raged on with heavy loss of life. In the summer of 1862, Lincoln considered an emancipation proclamation as a consequence of the actions of rebel states. He had other strategic advantages in mind as well:

1. African-Americans (including former slaves) would be allowed to enlist and fight the Confederacy
2. The war would gain moral weight, making the stakes more meaningful.
3. Europe (in particular anti-slavery England and France) would be dissuaded from supporting the South in such a battle over slavery.

Lincoln first announced the proclamation in September 1862 as a warning to the South, should they not surrender and stop the expansion of slavery.

The South continued to rebel, and Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

The Critical Turning Point

And yet, the Proclamation was a critical turning point for the meaning of the war. The North was no longer merely fighting to regain the South, but also for freedom itself. Frederick Douglass described the Proclamation as a “moral bombshell.”

A large number of southern slaves fled to the North when they heard of the proclamation, and many took up arms against their former masters. The South suffered as it lost its workforce and southerners scrambled to hide their slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation’s Legacy

While the bloody Civil War was far from over, the Emancipation Proclamation was the first step toward the 13th Amendment (ratified in December 1865), which finally freed all slaves.

Lincoln himself knew that the Proclamation would have a lasting impact:

I know very well that the name which is connected with this act will never be forgotten…It is my greatest and most enduring contribution to the history of the war. It is, in fact, the central act of my administration, and the great event of the nineteenth century. — February 1865

In Part III, we’ll look at the famed Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s timely response to bloodshed in the fight for liberty.

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The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union's available manpower. It was an important step towards abolishing slavery and conferring American citizenship upon ex-slaves, although the Proclamation did not actually outlaw slavery or free the slaves in the Union states that still permitted it. The Proclamation broadened the goals of the Union war effort; it made the eradication of slavery into an explicit Union goal, in addition to the reuniting of the country.

The Proclamation also prevented European forces from intervening in the war on behalf of the Confederacy. Because the Emancipation Proclamation made the abolition of slavery into a Union goal, it linked support for the Confederacy to support for slavery. As Lincoln hoped, the Proclamation swung foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union by gaining the support of European countries that had already outlawed slaver. It effectively ended the Confederacy's hopes of gaining official recognition from European heads of state.

This lesson demonstrates the importance of the immediate effects that the Emancipation Proclamation had on four major American groups: the Confederate states, the Union states, the Union Army, and black Americans.

Topics

Abolition

Civil War

Politics

Slavery

Big Ideas

US History

Essential Questions

How has social disagreement and collaboration been beneficial to American society?

What document or artifact best summarizes the United States and why?

Concepts

• Textual evidence, material artifacts, the built environment, and historic sites are central to understanding United States history.

• Conflict and cooperation among social groups, organizations, and nation-states are critical to comprehending society in the United States. Domestic instability, ethnic and racial relations, labor relations, immigration, and wars and revolutions are examples of social disagreement and collaboration.

Competencies

• Analyze a primary source for accuracy and bias and connect it to a time and place in United States history.

• Summarize how conflict and compromise in United States history impact contemporary society.

Background Material for Teacher

• The Emancipation Proclamation at 150. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 137 (1).

• Franklin, J.H. (1963). The Emancipation Proclamation. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

• Guelzo, A.C. (2004). The Great Event of the Nineteenth Century : Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Treasures of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Legacies 4 (2), 20-23.

• Holzer, H., Medford, E.G., & Williams, F.J. (2006). The Emancipation Proclamation : three views (social, political, iconographic). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

End of Unit Assessment

Students will perform an oral presentation of their assigned group's perspective to the rest of the class. Students will then use the historical arguments of all four groups to write a 1-2 page response, comparing and contrasting the effect that the Emancipation Proclamation had on each group.

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