| Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a
proclamation was issued by the President of the United
States, containing, among other things, the following,
to wit:
"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863,
all persons held as slaves within any State or
designated part of a State the people whereof shall
then be in rebellion against the United States shall
be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive
government of the United States, including the military and
naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to
repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts
they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the executive will on the 1st day of
January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and
parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof,
respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United
States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof
shall on that day be in good faith represented in the
Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at
elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such
States shall have participated shall, in the absence of
strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State and the people thereof are not
then
in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as
Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States
in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and
government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary
war measure for supressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st
day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose
so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one
hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and
designate as the States and parts of States wherein the
people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion
against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of
St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles,
St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St.
Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New
Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the
forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also
the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth
City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities
of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for
the present left
precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as
slaves within said designated States and parts of States
are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive
Government of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to
be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary
self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when
allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such
persons of suitable condition will be received into the
armed service of the United States to garrison forts,
positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of
all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act
of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and
the gracious favor of Almighty God.
-------------------------------------
On Jan. 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared
free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against
the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation
actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in
border states fighting on
the Union side; nor did it affect slaves in southern areas
already under Union control. Naturally, the states in
rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the
proclamation did show Americans-- and the world--that the
civil war was now being fought to end slavery.
Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A
believer in white supremacy, he initially viewed the
war only in terms of preserving the Union. As pressure
for abolition mounted in Congress and the country,
however, Lincoln became more sympathetic
to the idea. On Sept. 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary
proclamation announcing that emancipation would become
effective on Jan. 1, 1863, in those states still in
rebellion. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did
not end slavery in America--this was achieved by the
passage of the 13TH Amendment to the Constitution on
Dec.
18, 1865--it did make that accomplishment a basic war goal
and a virtual certainty.
DOUGLAS T. MILLER
Bibliography: Commager, Henry Steele, The Great
Proclamation
(1960); Donovan, Frank, Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation
(1964);
Franklin, John Hope, ed., The Emancipation Proclamation
(1964).
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