- [Voiceover] So again, we've been talking a lot about
the early stages of the Civil War which were about slavery
and the spread of slavery,
and I think in popular culture, when we think about things
like Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War and slavery,
the term Emancipation Proclamation, or the idea
of the Emancipation Proclamation comes to mind
and I think a lot of folks imagine it to be this really
amazing speech that at some point, you know,
Lincoln makes this proclamation,
and after that point, slavery is just gone from
the United States,
is that what it was?
- [Voiceover] No, it's actually a lot more complicated
than that.
So, the Emancipation Proclamation itself
was not a speech.
It was actually closer to a decree.
Even though Lincoln didn't originally come in to
his presidency intending to end slavery,
it became pretty clear in the first year of the war that--
- [Voiceover] He was anti-slavery.
He just didn't want it to spread.
He didn't think he could end it.
- [Voiceover] Right, so he
specifically says in his inaugural address that he has
no intention of ending slavery and that if the slave states
returned to the Union, everything will just go back
to the status quo, but it very quickly becomes apparent
in the Civil War that ending slavery is going to have
to be a goal of the North.
For one thing, the slaves provide so much of the production
for the South that interfering with that production
is really important for the North to secure victory
but it also is important on a moral ground.
Almost as soon as the war begins
and slave men and women in the South start going
to Union lines hoping for the army to protect them,
they want to be part of the war effort,
they interpret it as a war to end slavery
long before Abraham Lincoln interprets it as a war
to end slavery.
So it becomes clear by the summer of 1862 that
the Union is going to have to deal with slavery,
one way or another.
- [Voiceover] Now, once again, the reason why it's
strategically important is that this war is not going
as well as the North would have hoped
or as Lincoln would have hoped.
It's lasting longer,
the first years as we mentioned in the previous video,
the South was winning and it was going on the offensive,
and then also on the moral argument,
it gave the North something more to fight for.
- [Voiceover] Yes, and even in some pockets of the South,
individual Union generals were even
making their own small Emancipation Proclamation.
So it became clear that the North was going to need
an overall stance on whether this was a war to end slavery.
Lincoln decides, yes, this is going to be a war
to end slavery.
- [Voiceover] And so, does he announce it, you know,
just all of a sudden, or, is he kind of waiting for
the right time?
- [Voiceover] He's definitely waiting for the right time.
In the summer of 1862, he makes the first draft
of the Emancipation Proclamation,
and even in the summer, he shows it to the members
of his cabinets, and they're shocked.
Most of them are, themselves, strongly abolitionist
but they are terrified that this document is going to be
so revolutionary at a time when the North is already
struggling, that it's going to force the border states out,
that many of the whites in the North
who don't care about the fate of slaves
are going to leave the war effort,
so they advise Lincoln not to just proclaim
the Emancipation Proclamation,
but rather to wait for a big Union victory
to kind of put a stamp on the document.
- [Voiceover] And just to make sure we understand,
I mean, the fear of his advisors was
not all the Union states were free states.
You had states like Missouri and Kentucky
and Maryland that were
slave states but still part of the Union
and so the fear is, if you emancipate,
or if you make this proclamation, all of a sudden,
those states would leave.
- [Voiceover] Right, and those are very important states.
They have a very large white population,
relative to their enslaved population,
which means that if they go to the South,
all of those fighters will go for the South,
and it's also where a lot of the South's industry is
so it would mean that a tremendous amount of man power
and also industrial power would join the South,
so Lincoln and his cabinet are very concerned
about alienating these states.
They want to make sure that their power
doesn't go with the South.
- [Voiceover] Does the Emancipation Proclamation
end slavery in those states,
or the entire United States, or just in the South,
or just in the Confederate states?
- [Voiceover] So this is a strategy of military necessity,
as Lincoln says.
He specifically exempts the border states from the
Emancipation Proclamation.
- [Voiceover] He exempts them?
- [Voiceover] He exempts them.
- [Voiceover] He says, this does not apply to them.
So, it's not a pure moral grounds that slavery is evil
and needs to be gone from the Earth.
He's saying, in the states that are trying to secede,
he's banning slavery.
- [Voiceover] Right, and, he almost makes it like
a form of enticement for the South to come back.
He says,
here is my plan for emancipation.
I am going to put it into effect
on the first day of January, 1863.
He puts it out in
September of 1862
just after the Union victory at Antietam,
so this big Union victory gives him the...
- [Voiceover] Confidence, or--
- [Voiceover] The confidence.
- [Voiceover] the backdrop, the context.
- [Voiceover] The context
- [Voiceover] to do this. - [Voiceover] in which he
can put the Emancipation Proclamation out there,
but he says,
if the states that are in rebellion come back into the Union
before January 1st, then it will be null and void.
- [Voiceover] I see, so he's still trying to get them back
in the fold, and he's willing to accept slavery,
at least for the time being,
if he can end this war that's turning out far bloodier
and far longer-lasting than frankly anyone,
especially folks in the North,
had expected it to be,
so didn't immediately say, hey, no more slavery,
which might have made the South fight even harder.
It's like, hey, well, I'm going to make this effective
in January 1863, which would be another year,
so you have a couple months to come back,
come back to the mother ship so to speak.
- [Voiceover] Right, and the South does not take him up
on this offer, so when January 1st, 1863 rolls around
he signs the Emancipation Proclamation.
- [Voiceover] And, we have some of the text of
the Proclamation here, and what I think is interesting,
and we have this right on the Khan Academy site,
in one of the articles, is that,
it doesn't have the beauty of the Declaration
of Independence or even the Constitution.
It actually reads kind of like a legal document.
I mean, if I read this,
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord,
"one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,
"all persons held as slaves within any States or designated
"part of a State,"
so it's kind of this legalese,
"the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against
"the United States, shall be then, thenceforth
"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 efforts,
"in any efforts they make for their actual freedom,"
which is a,
in spirit a really nice thing to say,
but it reads like a legal document
and I could keep going and I encourage the folks listening
to read it, and it literally lists the various states
and as you mentioned, it's much more of a decree.
It's not this beautiful speech.
- [Voiceover] Right, and we know Lincoln for his beautiful
speeches, the Gettysburg Address is perhaps the most
famous speech in American history,
and so, it's a little bit strange that, arguably,
the most important thing that Lincoln ever does
is arguably the ugliest piece of writing that Lincoln
ever put out there.
It's because he's a lawyer,
and we forget sometimes about Lincoln's background
as a lawyer, but he practiced for decades,
and so, what he's trying to do here is really create
an ironclad legal document that no one can turn around later
and say, "Well, here's a loophole."
- [Voiceover] Yup, although it has its moments.
I mean, right here,
"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,"
so, I mean, it's kind of,
yeah, it's still kind of a legal,
yeah, it's not moving to the passions
or to the moral as much as, kind of,
and he even also talks about,
well, it is what it is.
We'll let other people judge it on their own.
- [Voiceover] But, you know, what's really important
about the Emancipation Proclamation is
from that point forward, even though he's particularly
putting this on the southern states where any
jurisdiction he has is really just what can be enforced
by the army,
it turns the Union army into an army of liberation,
that as they go throughout the South,
enslaved people will flock to them
and want to contribute to the war effort
and shortly after this, Lincoln will
make it possible,
one part of the Emancipation Population is saying that
African Americans can join the Union army as soldiers,
and so, they really,
from this point forward,
can play an active role,
direct and recognized role in ending slavery
and this is really the moment when slavery
truly starts to crumble.