Question

HISTORY

Many people think that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, and have given him the reputation of the Great Emancipator. What was the real meaning and effect of the Emancipation Proclamation and Linclon's view of Blacks?

Answer 1

On 1 January 1863, as the country entered its third year of bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite this expansive wording, the Proclamation of Emancipation has in many ways been limited. It only extended to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery in the loyal border states unaffected. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (Southern Secessionist States), which had already been controlled by the North. Most notably, the independence it offered relied on military success for the Union

Although the proclamation of emancipation did not end the nation's slavery, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the war's character. Every advance of federal troops after 1 January 1863 expanded the domain of freedom. In fact, the Proclamation declared that black people would be admitted into the Union Army and Navy, encouraging the liberated to become liberators. At the end of the war, almost 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors had fought for independence and the Union.

Slaves had acted to secure their own freedom from the very first days of the Civil War. The Declaration of Emancipation reinforced their determination that the war against the Union would become a war for independence. It added moral power to the Union cause and both militarily and politically strengthened the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human liberty as a milestone along the road to the final destruction of slavery.