TODAY IN HISTORY: 1862 Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln
issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,
which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3
million black slaves in the United States and
recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, shortly
after Lincoln’s inauguration as America’s 16th
president, he maintained that the war was about
restoring the Union and not about slavery.

He avoided issuing an anti-slavery proclamation
immediately, despite the urgings of abolitionists
and radical Republicans, as well as his personal
belief that slavery was morally repugnant.

Instead, Lincoln chose to move cautiously until he
could gain wide support from the public for such
a measure.

In July 1862, Lincoln informed his cabinet that he
would issue an emancipation proclamation but
that it would exempt the so-called border states,
which had slaveholders but remained loyal to the
Union. His cabinet persuaded him not to make
the announcement until after a Union victory.

Lincoln’s opportunity came following the Union
win at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862.
On September 22, the president announced that
slaves in areas still in rebellion within 100 days
would be free.

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final
Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “that
all persons held as slaves” within the rebel states
“are, and henceforward shall be free.” The
proclamation also called for the recruitment and
establishment of black military units among the
Union forces. An estimated 180,000 African
Americans went on to serve in the army, while
another 18,000 served in the navy.
After the Emancipation Proclamation, backing the
Confederacy was seen as favoring slavery.

It became impossible for anti-slavery nations such
as Great Britain and France, who had been
friendly to the Confederacy, to get involved on
behalf of the South. The proclamation also unified
and strengthened Lincoln’s party, the
Republicans, helping them stay in power for the
next two decades.

The proclamation was a presidential order and
not a law passed by Congress, so Lincoln then
pushed for an antislavery amendment to the U.S.

Constitution to ensure its permanence. With the
passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, slavery
was eliminated throughout America (although
blacks would face another century of struggle
before they truly began to gain equal rights).

Lincoln’s handwritten draft of the final
Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed in the
Chicago Fire of 1871.

Today, the original official
version of the document is housed in the National
Archives in Washington, D.C.

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