EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, the announcement issued by Abraham Lincoln 1 Jan. 1863 abolishing slavery in all military sections of the South except those territories occupied by Union arms. The Republican ad ministration at the outbrealc of the Civil War was awkwardly placed for dealing with slavery. To assail it in its own territory was not only to belie the past professions of the party, but to alienate so much Northern support as to assure failure; nor indeed had the great bulk of the party any thought beyond fettering the slave power for future aggression. On the other hand, to leave slavery untouched was not only to chill the energies of the most reliable up holders of the War, but to give foreign coun tries a pretext for asserting that the North was fighting merely for dominion, and that the Southern cause was that of liberty and morally entitled to help. The former horn of the di lemma was much the sharpest; and the govern ment moved very cautiously, restraining its subordinates like Fremont (30 Aug. 1861) and Hunter (9 May 1862) from forcing its hand by emancipation orders. On 9 Aug. 1861 an act had declared masters employing slaves against the government barred from further claim to them; but that was a mere warning and rule of court. The first embarrassing problem was how to deal with slaves in conquered districts, or who had come within its lines: was the gov ernment to act as slaveholders' trustee and re turn them to servitude? The growing resent ment against slavery as a convertible term for the rebellion, and disgust at being slave-catchers to the behoof of their enemies, supplied the answer, and on 13 March 1862 all army officers were forbidden to return fugitive slaves; their surrender from any quarter was made harder (though the Fugitive-Slave Law was not form ally abolished till 28 June 1864); on 17 June 1862 all captured, deserted or fugitive slaves of owners in rebellion were freed. As to the main body who plainly could not be left in un changed status as the core of a fresh abscess, Lincoln's wish was for compensated emancipa tion; he sent a special message to Congress 6 March, and that body passed a joint resolution 10 April, declaring that the United States ought to co-operate with any State which would adopt gradual abolition, by paying for the slaves, and on 16 April those in the District of Columbia were thus emancipated; but despite his repeated urgencies, the border States would take no measures of the kind. On 19 June the slaves in the Territories were freed.
The final blow came, as John Quincy Adams 20 years before had forecast that it would, by using the President's war power to suppress in surrection. As the second year of the conflict wore on, the majority demanded the crippling of its enemy by the most efficient means,•and very many believed that a threat of general emancipation would bring about a general sur render. Lincoln wished for a great victory first, that it might not appear the selfish re source of an overmatched power; but the dis couraging Peninsular campaign obliged him to satisfy his supporters by holding this bludgeon over the enemy. On 22 Sept 1862 he issued a
proclamation announcing that 100 days after, on 1 Jan. 1863, the Executive would issue an other proclamation designating the States or parts of States then deemed in rebellion, evi dence to the contrary being the presence of bona-fide representatives in Congress, that all slaves in the designated sections should be per manently free, and that the civil and military authorities of the United States would main tain their freedom, and would not repress any effort of theirs to make it good. The only re sult was a retaliatory proclamation by Jeffer son Davis 23 December, ordering that captured negro Federal soldiers and their officers should be turned over to the States, and that Gen.
B. F. Butler should be hanged if captured. Ott the 1st of January the threatened proclamation was issued, as uby virtue of .the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and as a fit and nec essary war measure for repressing said rebel lion? It designated Arkansas, Texas, Louisi ana except 13 or coulties, Missis sippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Caro lina, North Carolina and Virginia except West Virginia and seven other counties, as in rebel lion, emancipated all the slaves in them; en joined these freedmen to abstain from all vio lence except in self-defense, and to work faith fully for reasonable wages; announced that suitable members of them would be received into United States military and naval service, and for this act invoked uthe considerate judg ment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." The curious feature of this proclamation is that it abolished slavery only in the sections not under the military power of the United States, and left it untouched in those which were, namely, the ones specially excepted by it, ?which are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.° Hence it was argued by the Democrats that it had no legal force whatever, and emancipated no one; a question the Supreme Court never passed on. It was always accepted by the majority party, however, as a continuing act, applying as fast as any of that territory fell into the Union power, and not necessary to repeat. Politically, the results were enormous. Recognition of the Confederacy thenceforward meaning a flat maintenance of slavery instead of freedom, the entire anti-slavery sentiment of France and Great Britain was thrown against those countries' interference, which at once became unthinkable. It drove away many lukewarm Northern Republicans, and brought many local and State defeats to the administration; but it took the party °off the fence* and made it a coherent organization with one firm, open prin ciple, for many years unassailable. In the South, as defeat meant emancipation by their enemies and it would be no worse if done by themselves, some of the leaders (as Lee) seriously thought of offering freedom to slaves to fight in their armies in the latter part of the war, hoping to save independence and the con trol of their own destinies at least