Restrictions Of The Emancipation Proclamation Essay, Research Paper

Restrictions of the Emancipation Proclamation

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,

1863 declaring that all individuals held as slaves within the rebellious provinces

shall be free. However, despite this expansive diction, the Proclamation was

limited in many ways. It applied merely to provinces that withdrew from the Union,

go forthing bondage untouched in the loyal boundary line provinces. It besides specifically

excluded parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control.

Most significantly, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military triumph.

In the early life of Lincoln, he formed a strong sentiment on the issue of

bondage. Slavery, for Lincoln, violated everything for which he stood. Lincoln

was born into a hapless innovator household, and worked hard on the farm. He knew what

it was like to till dirt and rise harvests. Through his difficult work and

finding, Lincoln was able to go a successful attorney. “ Lincoln

believed that all Americans should hold the chance to heighten their lives

as he had enhanced his ain ” ( Tackach 30 ) . Lincoln felt bondage violated the

rule in the Declaration of Independence that stated “ all work forces are

created equal ” ( Tackach 31 ) .

The Emancipation of January 1, 1863, contained no indictment of bondage, but

merely based emancipation on “ military necessity ” . However, the

Federal Constitution still held the slaves as belongings, except in Missouri and

Maryland, two provinces which had legalized emancipation ( Sandburg 643 ) . Lincoln is

frequently known as the “ Great Emancipator ” , and was loved for

“ liberating the slaves ” . ( Donald 154 ) The intent for publishing the

announcement is non ever to the full understood. “ Although Lincoln & # 8217 ; s opinion

every bit good as timing were in the long tally to the full vindicated, it is possibly easier to

understand the Announcement in the footings in which Lincoln himself presented

it-as a war step, issued on the narrow evidences of military necessity, and

designed to ache the enemy both at place and abroad ” ( Canby 291 ) .

In the beginning, the Civil War was non being fought over the issue of

bondage, but it war was being fought chiefly to salvage the Union ( Tackach 43 ) .

Lincoln accurately hypothesized that any liberation of slaves elsewhere would ache

the boundary line provinces, and the Union could non afford to lose any more provinces than

it had already lost. Lincoln one time said

If I could salvage the Union without liberating any slave I

would make it, and if I could salvage it by liberating all the

slaves, I would make it ; and if I could salvage it by

liberating some and go forthing others entirely I would besides make

that ( Canby 292 ) .

As he wrote these words to Horace Greeley, Lincoln had already knew he was

traveling to publish the Emancipation Proclamation at the first favourable chance.

Part of the “ military necessity ” justification for the announcement

was the sentiment that freed inkinesss could non be used in the armed forces. In

helping to reconstruct the Confederate provinces and their citizens to the Union,

Lincoln was expressed and took his authorization in action ( Phillips 92 ) . As the war

entered its 2nd twelvemonth, the emancipationists in Congress began pressing the

president to liberate the slaves. Fring the slaves would do jobs because it

would stultify the South & # 8217 ; s ability to pay war. This would happen because the

labour by slaves would hold to be performed by work forces who might otherwise enlist in

the Confederate ground forces ( Tackach 43 ) .

As predicted, the South condemned Lincoln for the Emancipation Proclamation.

“ To pro-slavery Southerners, Lincoln was no better than John Brown, who

had, in 1859, attempted to light a bloody war to liberate the South & # 8217 ; s

slaves & # 8212 ; Lincoln & # 8217 ; s Emancipation Proclamation steeled the South & # 8217 ; s decide to win

the Civil War. To lose the war would intend an terminal to Southern bondage and the

ruination of the South & # 8217 ; s economic system. ” ( Tackach 46 ) .

In some ways, Lincoln had changed the intent of the Civil War. It went from

a war to reconstruct the Union to a war to stop American bondage ( Sandburg 331 ) .

The Emancipation Proclamation itself was no pealing call for an all-out

onslaught on bondage. It did non put custodies on slaves in the Confederacy and set any

of them free instantly. But it did, easy but certainly, take clasp of the heads

of work forces and animate them to contend for the freedom of 1000000s of work forces, adult females, and

kids in bondage. The announcement was a promise for the hereafter? a promise

that changed the war for the Union into a battle for freedom. ( Latham 5 )

The many restrictions and all right points in the announcement provided fuel for

Lincoln? s critics during the war and right into present twenty-four hours, but while he

lived, those critics were largely conservativists that were non traveling to look up to any

policy that led to liberating black people. Likewise, in Lincoln? s ain twenty-four hours most

political progressives? and, possibly more of import, most black people themselves? praised

the announcement. They noticed that despite the legalistic linguistic communication, the

papers carried? historic content. ? And the announcement was nil if non

politically brave. Lincoln remarked about the non-existent effects of the

announcement, ? The North responds to the announcement sufficiently in breath,

but breath entirely kills no rebels. ? ( Cuomo 241 )

The cut-and-dry linguistic communication of the announcement has, nevertheless, caused some

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people, to this twenty-four hours, to doubt Lincoln? s right to the rubric: ? the Great

Emancipator. ? They say that the force per unit area of the war forced Lincoln to do a

halfhearted gesture toward liberating slaves. They point out that he delayed

liberating the slaves while he smartly pushed programs to colonise freed slaves as

good as free Negroes in Africa, the Caribbean, and South America.

The Emancipation Proclamation applied merely to provinces in rebellion, relieving

boundary line break one’s back provinces and even countries of the Confederacy returned to the Union

control by January 1, 1863. Lincoln defends these limitations reasoning that to

hold gone farther would hold clearly exceeded his constitutional authorization. Not

until the following summer was Lincoln prepared publically to back up a

constitutional amendment get rid ofing bondage everyplace. ( Cuomo 292 )

More distressing to the President was the alienation the announcement caused

his moderate protagonists. Some border-state Trade unionists believed that his action

would sabotage the trueness of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Conservative

Republicans thought the announcement unconstitutional and unwise. Orville H.

Browning, one of the Presidents oldest and dearest friends, was so offended by

it, that he avoided discoursing public issues with the President. Even some of

his cabinet members regretted his announcement. ( Donald 379 )

Even in the North, one time the initial euphory had abated, the Emancipation

Announcement came under disbelieving examination. Abolitionists noted that Lincoln had

merely made a promise of freedom and that, apart from being conditional, his

promise could be withdrawn before January 1. A few even claimed that the

announcement postponed emancipation as required by the Second Confiscation

Act. ( Donald 379 )

? The North responds to the announcement sufficiently in breath, but breath

entirely kills no rebels. ? ( Thomas 66 ) In the South, so far as the president could

determine, the reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation was wholly

negative. Jefferson Davis denounced it as an effort to stir up servile

rebellion and called it a farther ground why the Confederate states must contend for

its independency. On Southern Unionism the announcement had a scarey consequence.

In Tennessee, Emerson Etheridge discovered in Lincoln? s announcement? perfidy

to the Union work forces of the South, ? and Thomas A. R. Nelson, one of the most

vigorous oppositions of sezession in eastern Tennessee, attacked? the atrociousness

and barbarianism of Mr. Lincoln? s proclamation. ? ( Miller 357 )

In Lincoln & # 8217 ; s 2nd term as President, he had several ends. First to stop the

war every bit rapidly as possible, and one time it was over, he wanted to retrace the

United States. In order for this end to be accomplished, he would hold to free

the state of bondage forever. In making this, Lincoln knew that the abolishment

of bondage would hold to be guaranteed in the Constitution ( Tackach 65 ) .

The great civil war to reconstruct the brotherhood and put an terminal to bondage was

chiefly over when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. With this end now behind

him, Lincoln had to work on retracing the state. “ For Lincoln,

for good deciding the issue of bondage was the key to retracing the

United States ” ( Tackach 68 ) . As a declaration, on February 1, 1865, Lincoln

approved and signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the provinces for confirmation

( Phillips 92 ) .

Although the Emancipation of Proclamation frequently earns recognition for liberating

slaves, Abraham Lincoln & # 8217 ; s executive order was really merely one of a series of

emancipatory Acts of the Apostless passed during the Civil War. ( Latham 45 )

The Emancipation Proclamation was the papers that turned the Civil War into

a battle for freedom. ( Latham 55 ) Therefore Lincoln? s sign language of the Emancipation

Announcement and the decisive support he lent to the passing of the Thirteenth

Amendment to the Constitution rightly won for him the rubric of? the Great

Emancipator. ? Today, in our ain clip of racial battles, he is of all time more

inspiring as the symbol of human freedom? the adult male who taught his countrymen

that all work forces are brothers, whatever color their tegument may be. Though the

Emancipation Proclamation was limited, it proved to be an inducement for winning

the war. Even though it proclaimed that all slaves would be “ henceforth and

everlastingly free ” , many of them were non accepted or recognized as equal for a

really long clip due to the setoffs of the Emancipation Proclamation.

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