In the fall of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, warning that on January 1, 1863, he would free all the slaves in the United States. This Emancipation Proclamation was intended as a war propaganda measure with a rather symbolic impact because the Federal Government in Washington had no means to enforce it at the time. The document clearly and irrevocably notified the South and the world that the war was being fought not just to preserve the Union, but to put an end to the peculiar institution of slavery in the South. Eventually, as Union Armies occupied more and more Southern territory, the Proclamation turned into reality as thousands of slaves were set free by the advancing Federal troops. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the Nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious States “are, and henceforward shall be, free.”
The Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways; it applied only to States that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border-States. It expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that were under Northern control and most importantly, the freedom it promised depended upon the Union’s military victory. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, it fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of the Federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom, though the slaves sought to secure their own liberty during the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union’s cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery’s final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.
The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. with the text covering five pages. The document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wager impression of the seal of the United States. While most of these ribbon bands remain and some parts of the seal are still readable, other parts have worn off.
The Emancipation document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume and preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.
tags: President Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamatio, civil war, slavery,
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