emancipation proclamation?

Question

Emancipation proclamation?
im writing a persuasive essay on why lincoln should not have signed the emancipation proclamation and need some good reasons. personally, i think it was a good decision to sign it, but this is the assignment

Answer 1

First look at Lincoln's inaugural address when he was elected in 1860. He states that the federal government should not interfere with slavery. Now look at the Emancipation Proclamation itself. It states that ONLY the states that are in rebellion should have their slaves freed. This meant states that were not in rebellion that still had slavery did not lose their slaves. It was not meant to be a political statement of slavery is wrong. It was meant to hurt the South's ability to send a majority population to war. This meant they could send a greater percentage of men to fight due to the fact they had slaves to take care of the farms. It was meant to break the back of the South's fighting men. Lincoln went back on his promise to preserve slavery because of this document.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

There are several reasons you can use:

1) It was an overstepping of presidential privledge, using his war powers to make decisions best left to congress.

2) That the true affect upon its release was symbolic (limitied to those states in rebellion, and thus made null and void without military occupation to enforce) and thus had little military or executive merit other than the politicizing and pandering to his party.

3) Its equivocation on the nature of slavery (slaves were considered 'tools of the southern war effort', and thus fair game for 'confiscation', not as human beings under the Declaration of Independence) further muddied the waters in terms of whether or not a black person was indeed a person, and thus entitled to the protections and freedoms listed in the Constitution. Lincoln's arguement against slavery as an institution, rather than the enslavement of blacks, can be considered a legal precursor to the black codes that were enacted after the civil war, since both relied upon a interpretation of the law regarding institutions, not individuals (which Brown V. Board of Education finally rectified many years later).

Answer 3

who would be left to work the fields and rebuild the southern economy after the war?