what did licoln ennobled in 1863 that gave slaves freedom?

Question

help

Answer 1

There are many misunderstandings of the Emancipation Proclamation, not just by those who think it was the document that freed ALL slaves (that was the 13th amendment), but ALSO by those who say that it "freed no one" and was just a publicity stunt. (It was not even just to keep Britain from supporting the Confederacy, though that was ONE thing Lincoln hoped it would help with.)

Think about it -- why so much fuss about it if "it really did not free anybody" ?! That's simply not true.

Yes, the Emancipation Proclamation ONLY applied to slaves in states then in rebellion. And no, it did not accomplish their release from slavery at that moment. BUT but it DID declare that all those slaves who had run away from their masters were free (and could rest assured the Union would NOT return them to slavery). And from then to the end of the war, as soon as Union forces were able to take charge of an area, its slaves were also freed. The very news of it --with the assurance they would not be returned-- led many more slaves to liberate themselves (as Lincoln also intended). So, in fact, it was the foundation for the freeing of MANY slaves.

Please note that Lincoln actually COULD not, under the Constitution, simply make a decree freeing slaves just because he wanted to! So those who ask why he did not free slaves in Maryland, for instance, do not understand that he did not have the legal authority to do so. The legal basis for the Emancipation Proclamation was his "war powers". In other words, Lincoln had the authority to use many different means to weaken those fighting against the Union. Since the slaves they owned and worked helped the Confederates' war effort, Lincoln was seeking to take that away from them.

Also the proclamation DID open the way for later gains. Along with the practice of allowing blacks to fight (and gain much respect doing so) and Lincoln's other political efforts, it helped convince border states to end slavery (as Lincoln had long urged them to do voluntarily), and gain passage of the 13th amendment (which Lincoln pushed VERY hard until Congress passed it in January 1865).


The following note by historian Stephen Oates nicely explains how the Proclamation had SEVERAL purposes, and they did include actually freeing slaves!

"We now know that Lincoln issued his proclamation for a combination of reasons: to clarify the status of the fugitive slaves, to solve the Union's manpower woes, to keep Great Britain out of the conflict, to maim and cripple the Confederacy by destroying its labor force, to remove the very thing that had caused the war, and to break the chains of several million oppressed human beings and right America at last with her own ideals."
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=3&subjectID=1

(The web site just linked has several excellent articles on how slavery came to an end, including the role of the Emancipation Proclamation.)

Answer 2

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states "are, and henceforth shall be free." However, since the proclamation did not include border states or areas of the Confederacy already under Union control it didn't free any slaves. Also, as a war measure, its legality was doubtful, which is why the constitutional amendments were added. The 13th Amendment explicitly forbids slavery in the United States. The 14th and 15th Amendments were designed to ensure the citizenship of freed slaves and protect their rights.

The Emancipation Proclamation was not without effect though. Foreign sentiment in coutries like Great Britain turned solidly in favor of the Union, effectively ending any hope of the Confederacy gaining official recognition.

Answer 3

I think you are looking for the Emancipation Proclamation, but it was only symbolic. It didn't have any power. It didn't free anyone.

It wasn't until the 14th and 15th amendments to the US Constitution were passed that Slavery was effectively abolished.

Amendments are passed by a 2/3 vote of both houses of the Congress and 2/3 endorsements of the states. It's a long process. No President can do it on their own.

Answer 4

~Licoln, or even Lincoln for that matter, never freed any slaves. He had no authority to do so. The edict he passed for which you seek the name (and I won't give it to you because you weren't on my help the dummies and lazies with their homework tonight list for this week) did not free any slaves. Slavery was abolished in the north and his edict had no effect in the south.

Hang tight, maybe jewle will come along and cut and past you 20 pages that won't answer question.

Answer 5

Objections to slavery existed in the early colonial period. But opposition to slavery did not develop into an organized effort until the age of the Revolutionary War. As colonists demanded the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they were forced to question and come to terms with the hypocrisy of slaveholding in their emergent free nation. Slaves also recognized the paradox of living in a country busy promoting fundamental rights while simultaneously holding blacks in bondage. Many of them used this moment of uncertainty to secure freedom. When the British forces called upon slaves to join their ranks and promised them freedom in return, black men enlisted. When the Colonial army made the same offer, black men joined their lines as well. Others, men and women, petitioned the courts for freedom, making their arguments on the same philosophical grounds that the patriots used to validate the war.



The Declaration of Independence. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers.

The Declaration of Independence not only declared the colonies free of Britain, but it also helped to inspire Vermont to abolish slavery in its 1777 state constitution. By 1804, all Northern states had voted to abolish the institution of slavery within their borders. In most of these states, however, abolition was not immediate. Instead, gradual emancipation laws set deadlines by which all slaves would be freed, releasing individuals as they reached a certain age or the end of a certain work period. This situation left some African Americans lingering in bonded servitude. Pennsylvania passed its Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780. Yet, as late as 1850, the federal census recorded that there were still hundreds of young blacks in Pennsylvania, who would remain enslaved until their 28th birthdays.

As they were emancipated in the first half of the nineteenth century, African Americans in the Northern states began to shape their lives as free people. They changed the names that had been given to them as slaves, they sought out educational opportunities, they founded institutions to provide for their spiritual and physical needs, and they formed communities that provided social support as well as the


Cazenovia, New York, Anti-Slavery Convention. Madison County Historical Society, Oneida, New York.

opportunity for cultural growth. Moreover, many of these African Americans joined or established societies dedicated to freeing those blacks that remained enslaved in other parts of the country. Although the abolitionists, both black and white, were not directly responsible for ending the U.S. system of slavery, their support of the Underground Railroad helped thousands to escape to freedom and their vociferousness helped to define Northern attitudes toward slavery.

The clash between abolitionists in the North and slaveholders in the South was a contributing factor in the outbreak of the Civil War. Nevertheless, when fighting broke, President Lincoln insisted that the war's sole purpose was the preservation of the Union. In the early years of the war, Lincoln's actions with regard to slaves were motivated by military strategy and necessity.


Company E, fourth U.S. Colored Infantry. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs.

In August 1861 he accepted the First Confiscation Act passed by Congress, which declared that slaves escaping to union lines would be considered contraband. Before the passage of this act, Union leaders had turned away blacks seeking to enlist and returned escapees seeking protection in the North to their Southern masters. Legally defined as contraband, and therefore subject to capture, thousands of slaves fleeing the South could now be put in the service of the Union army. The Second Confiscation Act, passed shortly after the first, gave the president the authority to recruit black men for the Union army. Although freedom was given to those who fought, it was considered a reward, not an intrinsic right.

In 1863, the nature of the Civil War shifted. On January 1st of that year, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the Confederate states. The Proclamation applied neither to slaveholding border states that had remained loyal to the Union (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) nor to rebel states subdued by Union forces prior to its issuance. Nonetheless, its significance was profound. With the Emancipation Proclamation, the struggle between North and South transformed into a war to end slavery. Concurrent with the war's end in 1865, the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Slavery was declared illegal in every part of the newly restored Union. African-Americans across the nation were free. The question now was what would become of the hundreds of thousands of newly freed men, women, and children. In 1862, the same year that President Lincoln expressed his advocacy of black colonization, the federal government abolished slavery in the nation's capital and provided for the emigration of freed blacks to Haiti and Liberia. The plan proved unsuccessful on a wide scale, as did Grants attempts to instate a colonization program as president after the war. For white Republicans, integration was the more practical approach to dealing with the free black population. Under their rule, Congress ratified two more amendments to the Constitution-- the fourteenth in 1868, which guaranteed African Americans citizenship and protection under the law, and the fifteenth in 1870, which granted all male citizens full constitutional rights. The Republicans were also responsible for "Radical Reconstruction" policies designed to disempower Southern white democrats and the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau, an agency that attempted to empower African Americans by aiding former slaves who desired to build schools and churches, to purchase land, to formalize marriages, and to reunite with lost loved ones.

Despite Reconstruction efforts and successes, the lifestyle and values of Southern Democrats proved deeply engrained. Many slaves relocated to the north. However, most freed men and women remained in the South, where they were pressed into sharecropping. This system entailed black workers farming the land of white planters. The black laborers were supposed to earn an equitable share of the profits from the agricultural yield. Instead, they were exploited, accruing insurmountable debts to the men whose fields they worked. Meanwhile, apprenticeship laws, by which whites could win custody of black children and put them to work, were little more than an alternative form of enslavement.

Perhaps most damaging to the progress of Reconstruction were groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Red Shirts. These confraternities of white men terrorized not only African Americans in the South, but also white Republicans.


Representative Robert B. Elliot from "The Shackle Broken." Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

One of Reconstruction's greatest successes had been black political involvement. African-American men not only voted, but also ran for and were elected to offices, actually gaining the majority in the South Carolina legislature in 1868. Because of threats from violent organizations like the Klan and due to pressure on legal bodies from Democrats eager to revive the social order of the antebellum South, the governments of Southern states were "redeemed." These states adopted Black Codes to limit the rights of freed people. The Republicans lost their control of Congress, and African Americans lost not only their newly won political power, but also the protection they were promised as citizens under the Constitution. By 1872, the Freedmen's Bureau was abolished.

In 1877, the Democrats and Republicans made a compromise to reconcile a debated presidential election. It was agreed that a Republican, Hayes, would take the presidency. In return, all remaining federal troops would be removed from Southern territories. Within the next year, there was an exodus from the south as former slaves realized that they would have to go elsewhere to find true freedom. Tens of thousands of African Americans took to the roads. They headed west.

Three years later, whites in the Tennessee legislature enacted a set of laws that replaced slavery with segregation. Similar Jim Crow laws were adopted by other states across the U.S. African Americans were free but their oppression was far from over.

Nicholas Boston is a writer and assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Jennifer Hallam holds a doctorate in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania. Her studies focus on issues of sex and gender as they are manifest in material culture. She is currently working in documentary film production in New York City.