Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: Justice and Military Necessity
“And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
~ Abraham Lincoln, “The Emancipation Proclamation,” January 1, 1863
~ Abraham Lincoln, “The Emancipation Proclamation,” January 1, 1863
Image (above): “The Emancipation Proclamation”
No document penned by Abraham Lincoln has galvanized more dispute than the Emancipation Proclamation--during the time it was enacted and even through today. Although critics then and now question its legality and its potency, President Lincoln created a constitutional and effective way to emancipate the slaves and end more than a century of tension and divide over the issue. Elected on a platform opposing the expansion of slavery in 1860, Lincoln’s victory in that presidential election proved the “last straw” for pro-slavery radicals, who pressed their states to secede from the Union and later formed the Confederate States of America. After the federal troops surrendered Fort Sumter in April 1861, the Union was at war with the rebel states. Even though the United States had an established government and military, vast industrial resources, and greater manpower, the Confederates were motivated to defend their home soil and “way of life.” The rebels actively courted foreign intervention and consistently outmaneuvered the comparatively less-able commanders of the Army of the Potomac. In addition to being the Commander in Chief during one of the greatest conflicts in our history, President Lincoln had to be careful not to lose the support of border state Unionists, and he needed to prevent the British and the French from intervening on behalf of the Cotton South. Above all, he wanted to safeguard the Constitution and avoid actions that would jeopardize the laws of the land even if those actions attempted to resolve the slavery question. Prior to the New Year’s Day document, President Lincoln had created two earlier drafts of the proclamation. On July 22, 1862, he shared the first draft privately with his Cabinet, who advised him to wait until a military victory to publicize an emancipation decree. After the successful halting of Lee’s forces at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln had the “victory” he needed, and on September 22, 1862, he made public his second draft of the proclamation, which promised a final, formal enactment on January 1, 1863. Although critics over the 133 years since it was written have claimed the “Emancipation Proclamation” to be tyrannical or even ineffective, Lincoln crafted a constitutional approach to resolving the injustice of slavery and effectively denied a crucial resource to the rebel states to expedite the war’s end.
Questioning of President Lincoln’s motives regarding the Emancipation Proclamation began immediately after the third and final draft was signed. Days after Lincoln formally determined that the slaves in the rebel states were freed and that they could enlist and fight on behalf of the Union, several Northern newspapers raised an alarm. The New York Times, for one, questioned the constitutionality of the president’s “war measure” and doubted its effectiveness (President’s). Predictably, Southern journals, like the Daily Southern Crisis, described it as a radical decree born from “fanaticism” that confirmed their deepest suspicions about the anti-slavery Lincoln (Emancipation).
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Image (above): “Four Days of Fire: The New York Draft Riots”
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The debate over the proclamation continues into the present day as well. A few historians, such as Richard Hofstadter and Lerone Bennett, asserted that the proclamation failed to free a single slave where it could and that it claimed to free slaves where it could not: in enemy territory (Bennett). Professor James Oakes has countered that this argument ignores the agency of the slaves who aided emancipation policy by fleeing to Union lines (Gilder). The controversy has created a polarized view of Abraham Lincoln as either the “Great Emancipator” or as a bigoted man pressured by radicals to act on behalf of slavery when he was unwilling and unable to do so.
Image (above): “[Supreme Court Chief Justice] Roger Brooke Taney”
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In fact, President Lincoln, a former lawyer, was not unfeeling about the plight of slaves but extremely mindful of the constitutionality of such a momentous decree, and he tread carefully to bring slavery in America to an end. Although Lincoln had made several decisions that seemingly stretched the limits of executive authority since the outbreak of the war, he tried to avoid taking any action against slavery that the Taney court could reverse.
Lincoln gave fair warning that he would make this proclamation, reminding the reader of this fact in its first sentence (Lincoln). Even the Daily Southern Crisis conceded that Lincoln did not hastily prepare the decree and that he gave 100 days notice before the final proclamation, suggesting the president would be unlikely to modify or rescind it (Emancipation). |
Throughout the source, Lincoln emphasized his authority as Commander in Chief and the military necessity of the proclamation, which was designed to allow the Union military to address the use of slaves behind enemy lines and their need for more men (Lincoln). Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald claimed Lincoln was pressured to craft the document to appease Northern governors, who threatened to withhold their troop quotas unless the president took “a stand against slavery” (Donald). Although this argument suggests that Lincoln was not personally in favor of emancipation and that many governors and their constituents had stronger abolitionist goals, the president did not take hasty executive action because he worried about judicial review from the pro-slavery Supreme Court. For most of the proclamation, Lincoln used an authoritative tone and reiterated the military role of the president and the military purpose of the document to justify his move to emancipate slaves in areas of rebellion only (Lincoln). He concluded the document with a declaration that he believed emancipation was “an act of justice” since it had been denied in the Taney courts via the Dred Scott decision (1857) which also undid several earlier legislative compromises that had cordoned off the "free" territories (Ibid). Furthermore, he resolved that the power vested in him as Commander in Chief made the act constitutional as a result of wartime need (Ibid). As Professor Allen Guelzo has noted, Lincoln was not pressured by public opinion, which was largely hostile to emancipation, but he did feel compelled to take action himself as the border states were not responding to his calls for gradual, compensated emancipation (Guelzo). Even though Lincoln did not use uplifting language and repeatedly claimed the military necessity of emancipation throughout much of the document’s seven, long sentences, he took this step as a constitutional way of ending an injustice that was incompatible with natural rights in the rebel areas where it was most deeply entrenched.
Although Lincoln reiterated the military necessity of emancipation throughout the proclamation, he did so to legitimate the decree as well as to bolster the Union forces. Since the sectional tensions and civil warfare were sparked by diverging opinions on slavery, the war had long been one to decide the question of whether the United States would be a slave or a free republic. For the Southern forces, the slaves represented a critical asset, so depriving the traitorous enemy of this resource would aid the Union war effort. The rebel states used slave labor to produce their food and weapons, and even, in the last few months of the conflict, the Confederates were prepared to arm their enslaved men to fight on behalf of their cause!
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Image (above): “Emancipation Day in South Carolina,” 1863
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In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln asserted that “all persons held as slaves” in rebel-controlled areas “shall be...forever free” (Lincoln). While it is true, that the areas specified in the decree were places controlled by the enemy and not by Union forces, news of emancipation would travel with and even ahead of the American armies, disrupting Southern farms and plantations and creating societal chaos. As promised in the second draft of the decree, President Lincoln determined which areas of the Union were still in rebellion based on whether a majority of its citizens participated in elections, seeing the rebellion as the tyranny of a minority group (Ibid). Although Lincoln’s careful exclusion of the loyal, slave-holding border states and the Union-occupied areas of Louisiana seem to call into question Lincoln’s commitment to ending slavery, the president cleverly proclaimed emancipation was a wartime necessity to suppress the rebellious states under his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief (Ibid). It would exceed the authority of the civilian leader of the Army and Navy to militarily enforce emancipation with loyal states and citizens. Actually, the Second Confiscation Act, passed by Congress on July 17, 1862, provided the U.S. military the “authority” to free and utilize slaves escaping to Union lines (Confiscation). However, the military was not supposed to “entice” slaves or emancipate those outside of Union lines. As Professor Oakes has explained, earlier emancipation policy dating back to the First Confiscation Act of 1861 worked hand-in-hand with slaves escaping to the protection of Union forces; this would also enable the Union to erect a "cordon of freedom" around the South to enable the institution of slavery to slowly die a natural death, surrounded by free states and territories (Gilder). The late historian LaWanda Cox had noted the effective timing and coordination between Congress and the president; the Second Confiscation Act addressed slaves “within Union lines,” and the Emancipation Proclamation dealt with those not addressed by the legislation: the Confederate-controlled areas (Cox). The Republican Party worked through Congressional and Executive offices to create pressure to end slavery using military force where it could and encouraging the border states to begin the process of emancipating their remaining slaves (Ibid). Finally, President Lincoln provided for the enlistment of black troops in the Emancipation Proclamation “to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places,” which would eventually add nearly 200,000 men in the Union Army and Navy (Lincoln). Although enlistments were slow at first and the units would be organized into segregated “Colored Regiments,” these men fought with distinction in infantry and artillery positions and served in many non-combat roles as well (History). In what would become a grinding war of attrition, the Emancipation Proclamation proved to be complementary to Congressional legislation, disrupted Confederate society, and provided for additional fresh and motivated troops for the Union cause.
Image (above): “President Abraham Lincoln, 1863”
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Although Abraham Lincoln was a private man who guarded his emotions and, at times, seemed to exhibit the politician’s knack of “speaking out of both sides of his mouth,” he had a reputation for honesty, and he had publicly stated many times that he believed slavery was wrong. Nevertheless, many have doubted his motives for drafting the Emancipation Proclamation. Actually, the document represents Lincoln’s best effort to find a constitutional way to end slavery without judicial override and without legislating from the White House. Lincoln repeatedly asserted that his actions were appropriate and necessary as Commander in Chief, and his farsighted wartime strategy helped deprive the rebel enemies of part of their workforce while bolstering Union forces with willing black volunteers.
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As a result of this action, Lincoln is appropriately regarded as a “Great Emancipator”. The Union gained the moral high ground in the Civil War, and the British and French leadership decided not to risk the wrath of their antislavery constituents by recognizing the Confederacy. As black troops showed their mettle in battle, white Americans increasingly gained a larger appreciation for their bravery and sacrifices. If not for this executive action, the later Thirteenth Amendment to permanently end slavery and the amendments conferring citizenship status to the freedmen and black male suffrage would have been unlikely. Overall, Lincoln was motivated to end the cruel practice of slavery in America permanently, but in a constitutional manner and when the time seemed right to do so. This does not make him unfeeling or merely badgered into emancipating the slaves; in fact, it shows Lincoln’s willingness to place the burden of this decision squarely on his own shoulders in the shrewdest way possible at the time.
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Carolina, 1981. Print.
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Gilder Lehrman. "James Oakes: Emancipation and the Question of Agency." YouTube. YouTube, 06 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 July
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lincoln-history.org/emancipation-proclamation/
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Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Web. 19 July 2016.
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Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2009) pg. 4. Web. 16 July 2016.
http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/lincoln/files/2013/06/EmancProc1.pdf.
This close reading of President Abraham Lincoln's January 1, 1863 "Emancipation Proclamation" was completed for Professor Matthew Pinsker's "Understanding Lincoln" course over the summer of 2016. The author extends her gratitude to Joseph Murphy for his feedback and suggestion