Why did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation when he did?

Answer 1

One reason for this SPECIFIC timing --as another answer has already noted-- is that Antietam was the first thing like a Union victory after Lincoln decided he WOULD issue the Proclamation. (In fact, he announced it to his Cabinet on July 22 --two months earlier-- but Seward convinced him to wait for a victory, so as not to seem to simply be asking in desperation.) But that's more a specific practical issue.

It is also true that the concern with trying to keep European nations (esp England) from recognizing and more openly supporting the Confederacy, played a role in his considerations

But I'm not sure this was as important as the following reasons, which Lincoln HIMSELF gave, some of them in the Proclamation itself! These are all key reasons for the Proclamation. #1 and 2 are more directly related to your question about the PRECISE timing of this action.

1) Lincoln needed more MILITARY recruits--
Free blacks and runaways had expressed great willingness to fight, and the freeing of slaves could supply much of this manpower need. In this respect, the Proclamation was a HUGE success -- by war's end about 200,000 of these had fought for the Union.

Note that the Proclamation very explicitly provides for the acceptance of such recruits.

(Incidentally, this helps put the lie to the silly [neo]-Confederate claim that Lincoln didn't free anyone, and didn't much care ... that it was all PR. Not hardly! When slaves heard about it, many FLED... and as Union armies advanced to take a territory, slaves there were quickly liberated.)

2) As a military measure to weaken the Confederacy --
It had quickly become clear that the Confederacy would "fight to the finish" -- and Lincoln started looking for EVERY proper way to fight the war, including means of weakening the enemy. Since the slave workforce helped support the Confederate armies (even freeing men to go and fight), a step to take away that workforce would help the Union's war effort. The Proclamation itself is EXPLICITLY formulated as an act by the "Commander-in-chief" and as an act of MILITARY necessity.

(Note that this is why he did NOT declare any slaves in loyal states free -- because, Constitutionally he COULD not. The ONLY argument for his releasing ANY was as a war action against those in rebellion. Some even questioned whether he had THAT right, but no one at the time seriously suggested the President had authority to simply emancipate ANY slaves anywhere... and had he even tried, slaves states still in the Union would likely have left... and cost him the whole war!)

3) To remove the CAUSE of the war -
Contrary to popular Southern rhetoric AFTER the War, almost everyone understood that slavery was the underlying CAUSE of the war. (Note: the North WAS fighting to preserve/restore the Union, but they mostly understood that is was slavery that had CAUSED the rift they sought to heal. And on the other side, the early seceding states EXPLICITLY stated slavery and its protection as a central reason for THEIR actions, and appealed to others to join them for that same reason.) Very early in the war Lincoln (and others) recognized that a final resolution of the war -- perhaps even an earlier one-- would have to involve the END of slavery. As early as December 1861 he was prodding the border slave states that had remained in the Union to voluntarily emancipate their slaves, for which he would attempt to gain some financial assistance from Congress (much cheaper than war, he thought). He apparently hoped to spread this program to border Confederate states. (Unfortunately, the Union slave states resisted all this for a long time, undercutting Lincoln's plan.)

4) Because slavery itself was wrong and unjust --
Lincoln was conservative in his view of the Constitution. But he also had clearly stated his belief that slavery was morally EVIL, and its eventual end must be sought. In other words, he WANTED slavery to end, but did not believe this could be forced on the South. This was the common Republican Party view --that Congress could prevent the SPREAD of slavery (in the territories), so that it would eventually grow weak and die in those states where it remained. (That is, the states THEMSELVES would decide, as Northern states had in the 1770s-80s, to legislate its end.)

BUT now the War had changed the situation, and Lincoln showed that if he could correct the injustice of slavery in a way that was Constitutional and workable, he wished to do so. (This is further borne out in his appeals, mentioned above, to border states, AND in his work throughout the rest of the war to gain the passage of the 13th amendment, to ASSURE the legal end of slavery THROUGHOUT the Union.)

Lincoln's view on the immorality and injustice of slavery was often expressed in the years before the war (see esp the Lincoln-Douglas debates in which he chides Douglas for refusing to either join HIM in saying slavery is wrong OR those who said it was good and right; see also his 1860 "Cooper Union Address")

Note how this conviction, together with other reasons above, is expressed, in the closing statement of the Proclamation.

In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation is not so very long -- take a look at it here, esp the first and last sections, to see these points.
http://www.nps.gov/ncro/anti/emancipation.html

Answer 2

The Battle of Antietam was the closest thing to a victory at that time the Union had seen in the East. At that point in time, the Confederates were hoping for foreign intervention from Great Britain and France. The Union was afraid the Confederates were going to get the aid they wanted. By issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln could argue that the Union cause was about ending slavery, knowing that Britain and France would have difficulty supporting the Confederates among their own citizens.

Answer 3

To make slavery the issue of the war, which he and the other republicans had denied up to that point.

That kept England and France from recognizing the confederacy because slavery was very unpopular in those countries by then.

Added:
The act was so unpopular amongst republicans that they were not backing Lincoln for renomination, and were it not for some spectacular wins by Grant, timely as concerns their convention, Lincoln would not have run for a second term. The republicans wanted to keep slavery and take possession of the south after the war, deporting all the whites with property.

That mind set is what lead to them impeaching Johnson, because he continued Lincoln's policies.

Answer 4

It was a PR stunt to hide the fact that the war was actually about tyranny and liberalism on the Northern side. Lincoln and the like supported a strong federal gov't that trumped the rights of the states in violation of the constitution.

The North threatened to secede from the Union multiple times, the south always caved in. Lincoln knew before hand that if he were elected then the South would leave the union. Instead of backing down, he decided that his being president was more important than the Union staying together, then proceeded to reclaim the union by force (making him a tyrant).

The EP was merely a PR ploy to get people to ignore that his arrogance and liberal ideas were the real reason for the war.
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Slavery was the issue that brought it all to light, but the fact was the Union was designed so that the Southern States did not have the power to influence the gov't anymore. Lincoln got no electoral votes from the South, yet won the election-that is a geographic half of the country completely unrepresented.
Even were slavery the actual issue, is fighting for one race really worthy ignoring others? The CS treated NAs, specifically the Cherokee as actual people with full rights. The Northern gov't freed the slaves (but only in the states that went against them, not in the ones that stayed loyal), but they mistreated NAs. They also failed to do anything to actually help the freed slaves.

Slavery was nearly done anyway. Cotton was no longer needed in such large supply. The profits wouldnt have been there much longer. In switching to other crops it would have been more economical to update the systems and machinery. This would have allowed a gradual phase out of slavery, which history has shown us tends to end in actual integration rather than the violence that errupted here.

Answer 5

How sad that years after this Civil War ended there are still those who want us to believe their side of the story, and continue to deny what occurred in connection to Abolition, and refer to the Emancipation Proclamation as a "publicity stunt."

When they talk about their so-called "states rights" as if it were some high ideal to die for - beware, that is a PR stunt.

In the very same "states rights" was the right to own slaves.