Emancipation Proclamation
on the Timeline

AT A GLANCE

Emancipation Proclamation

4 articles on Emancipation Proclamation

• Emancipation Proclamation

  Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

  Word Count: 1395      Includes:  Bibliography

  The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863. Although it did not immediately free any slaves, it redefined the Union's military goals, and a war that had been undertaken strictly to reunite the country was transformed into a war of liberation. From 1863 onward, it was clear to both Northerners and Southerners that a Union victory would mean the permanent abolition of slavery.

  The proclamation was months, if not years, in the making. Abolitionists had been pressuring the government to end slavery on moral grounds since the 1830s; they were joined in the 1850s by the Free-Soilers, who were concerned about the impact slavery was having on free laborers. The presidents of the 1850s—Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan—turned a deaf ...
  Read full article

• Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment

  Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

  Word Count: 1011     

  Documents that finally ended legalized slavery in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment is best understood against the background of the American Civil War (1861–1865). President Abraham Lincoln had adamantly opposed slavery throughout his political career, although he was a proponent of the controversial colonization movement, which encouraged the emigration of free African Americans to West Africa. In addition, his Republican Party had been formed in 1854to oppose the expansion of slavery. However, ending slavery was not one of the Lincoln administration's initial war aims. Instead he sought to “save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery.” As president, Lincoln had sworn to uphold the Constitution, and the Supreme Court had affirmed the constitutionality of slavery in ...
  Read full article

• Emancipation Proclamation

  Source: The Oxford Companion to United States History

  Word Count: 992     

  (1863). Issued by President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared that all slaves, in states or portions of states in rebellion against the United States, “are and henceforward shall be free.” The president thus freed slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and parts of Virginia and Louisiana. Lincoln exempted those states remaining loyal to the Union, such as Maryland, and portions of Confederate states occupied by U.S. troops. Lincoln justified the proclamation by citing military necessity.

  The proclamation was the culmination of a gradual process. Although Lincoln had initially declared the preservation of the Union, and not the abolition of slavery, as his principal purpose in fighting the Civil ...
  Read full article

• Emancipation Proclamation

  Source: The Oxford Companion to American Military History

  Word Count: 462     

  (1863). Abraham Lincoln's presidency began in March 1861 with a pledge to maintain slavery by enforcing the federal fugitive slave law. By May, however, Lincoln accept a de facto “contraband” policy that permitted Union commanders to protect and employ black fugitives who came within their lines from disloyal regions. Congress suspended federal enforcement of the fugitive slave law and provided in the summer of 1862 for the confiscation and emancipation of “contraband” slaves. Gen. George B. McClellan vehemently opposed these measures, but Lincoln soon acted as commander in chief to declare emancipation a Union war aim.

  On 22 September 1862, Lincoln declared that all slaves would be freed in states or regions of states still in rebellion on the first day of the following year. After this proclamation, the prospect ...
  Read full article