I’m haunted by the sense that I’ve written this post, or something very much like it, already. Worse still, I’m almost certain that what I wrote before was much better than what I’m about to write this time. But I can’t find the old post. So I guess I’d better do this again. My mind truly is a funhouse filled with mirrors. Anyway…
On this day in 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The document did not free any slaves; instead it warned the Confederacy that the consequences of continuing the rebellion were about to change. The previous July, Lincoln had explained that: “This government cannot much longer play a game in which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing. Those enemies must understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the government, and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt.”
After first floating another in a long series of proposals for compensated emancipation — slaveholders rejected the offer out of hand — Lincoln embraced emancipation. On July 22, he informed his cabinet that he would soon issue a proclamation freeing the slaves. Secretary of State Seward suggested that Lincoln should wait until Union troops enjoyed a victory in the field. Seward argued that Lincoln’s proclamation would then have more weight, rather than looking like “the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help.” Lincoln agreed.
Then he waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, on September 17, Union and Confederate soldiers clashed at Antietam, the bloodiest battle of the war, abruptly ending Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North. Five days later, Lincoln again called his cabinet together. He explained that he had struck a deal with the Almighty: if the army could drive the rebels out of Maryland, he had promised God that he would issue his Emancipation Proclamation. “I wish it were a better time,” he worried. “I wish that we were in better condition.” He proceeded anyway.
The Proclamation stated that unless the Confederate states returned to the Union before January 1, their slaves “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” That sounds good in theory. But in practice, the document was pretty weak tea. Its conditions would only apply to those states still in rebellion when the New Year began. Which is to say, territory where federal authorities had no ability to enforce it. As the London Times explained: “Where he has no power Mr. Lincoln will set the negroes free; where he retains power he will consider them as slaves.”
True enough. But that characterization partly missed the point. Lincoln believed that the Constitution bound his authority. In his capacity as Commander in Chief, he could seize property in territory rebelling against the government. But in areas loyal to the Union, or those occupied by Union troops, he had no such power. More than that, the Proclamation revealed that Lincoln’s view of the war had shifted. As he explained: “The character of the war will be changed. It will be one of subjugation. The South is to be destroyed and replaced by new propositions and ideas.”
As for the details of the Emancipation Proclamation, like Lincoln’s war aims, they evolved over time. But that’s a story we’ll take up in the New Year. Hey! Wait just a second! I think I know where to look for that missing post. Yup, there it is.
8 comments
September 23, 2008 at 5:48 am
Ben Alpers
In his capacity as Commander in Chief, he could seize property in territory rebelling against the government. But in areas loyal to the Union, or those occupied by Union troops, he had no such power.
Obviously he just needed a John Yoo to tell him that his Commander in Chief powers were essentially unlimited. Think of how much easier the Civil War would have been had the reality-based community not been in charge! It might have gone as well as the GWOT!
September 23, 2008 at 8:59 am
grackle
This posting is a prime exhibit as to why I am such a lap dog of this blog. My ignorance about this period is so vast I find myself almost astonished at details that I had taken, quite often wrongly, for granted. I am struck by this eloquent phrase in the Jan. 1864 proclamation:
…and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
which brings up the question, which of these enumerated states, counties or areas were at the time still slave-holding? All of them? I was surprised also that Lincoln worried/ believed/recognized that he would exceed his actual authority to overturn slavery such that he justified it on the grounds And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity…
Forsooth! Is that not the same justification used to build the interstate highway system? It seems that military necessity is ever with us, and we have no ability to act in concert as a nation without it.
September 23, 2008 at 9:22 am
Ben Alpers
grackle,
The entire Confederacy was slave holding (that’s why they attempted to leave the Union), as well as the Union border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, as well as West Virginia (which seceded from Virginia and to the Union in 1861 and was admitted as a state in 1863).
So all the areas of the country “in rebellion” were slaveholding.
As for the slaveholding areas not covered by the Proclamation: in addition to the border states (including WV), a number of significant areas of the Confederacy were, by January 1, 1863, already under Union control, and thus no longer in rebellion. These included Tennessee, southern Louisiana, and some of the Virginia tidewater.
September 23, 2008 at 9:28 am
grackle
Thanks Ben, I did understand that, especially with Lincoln’s painstaking enumeration of Louisiana parrishes that were to be exempt. My question was which of the exempt areas- not in rebellion- (and any truly northern areas) were still slave-holding? All of them? I think you just answered it.
September 23, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Matt McKeon
It’s important to note that, if the North won the war, slavery in these exempted areas, islands of servitude in a sea of freedom, would not have lasted. Actually they didn’t last.
The Emancipation Proclamation meant, after over two centuries, American slavery was finished.
September 23, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Ben Alpers
The Emancipation Proclamation meant, after over two centuries, American slavery was finished.
The writing was on the wall before the Emancipation Proclamation. Southern secessionists were right about one thing: the slave economy depended on its ability to expand the “peculiar institution” westward. If the federal government thwarted that ability, as a Republican presidency promised to do, slavery’s days were already numbered.
The Proclamation did speed the day of slavery’s end. But the same, I think, can be said of the Confiscation Act of 1861 and, before it, of the slaves’ own flight to Union lines that precipitated that Act.
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