today we're looking at the Emancipation Proclamation hello welcome to the daily Valerie
please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions down in the description also
I'd love to see your answer question number five in the comments below so after the Union forced
robert e lee and confederate forces to abandon the Maryland campaign at the Battle of Antietam
President Lincoln seized the opportunity to make a bold move by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation
so what was the Emancipation Proclamation it was an executive order signed on September 22nd 1862
just five days after Antietam that stated as of January 1st 1863 all enslaved people in rebelling
States would be free now first a couple of things what is an executive order an executive order
is a written and signed published order from the President of the United States it is not
passed by Congress and Congress cannot change it or get rid of it however Congress can pass
legislation that basically blocks it such as cutting off funding to whatever initiative the
president is trying to support this is where we need to look back in the Constitution and
understand that the president has executive powers that were not really clearly defined
in the Constitution second of the four million men women and children living in slavery at the time
Lincoln did not free any enslaved people in the order it only applied to states where that were
rebelling and they obviously were not following federal law and not gonna fall in an executive
order the border states that remain loyal to the Union but still had slavery were excluded
from the proclamation Lincoln wanted to make sure these border states did not leave in sport itself
so Lincoln had urged those states to gradually emancipate and free people but if you were to
think back to the time period of sectionalism and how honestly on every front the federal government
had defended slaveholders rights to hold people in slavery you might be wondering how Lincoln
was able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation after all the Supreme Court had declared slavery
to be constitutional in the Dred Scott decision during the summer of 1862 Congress had passed
two laws pertaining to enslaved people first the militia Act which allowed African American
men to serve in the Army as laborers not soldiers second the confiscation act stating that all the
slaves taken from Confederate supporters would be permanently free keeping these acts in mind
and and the surprising military success of the Confederacy was having in 1862 Lincoln wanted to
take away anything that might aid the Confederates cause so he argued he had the authority to free
enslaved people as a military necessity under his power as commander-in-chief of the Armed
Forces Lincoln stressed that enslaved people were aiding the Confederate cause by providing labor
for them so in order to defeat the Confederacy militarily it was necessary to free enslaved
people furthermore in the proclamation Lincoln opened up full military service for African
Americans now the Union had even more manpower to call upon to fill their ranks and thousands
of African Americans rushed to join and fight for the Union also by issuing the proclamation
Lincoln ensured that Britain and France who were very much opposed to slavery would not come in to
aid the Confederacy Lincoln knew well that as soon as the war ended the Supreme Court would Terra's
Emancipation Proclamation apart and slavery could possibly continue that is why Lincoln frantically
pushed for the Thirteenth Amendment to be passed before the war ended in 1865 so slavery would
be ended permanently many military leaders told Lincoln that white soldiers would not fight for
for ending slavery we have to remember that most northerners were not opposed to slavery for moral
reasons most northerners were opposed to it for economic reasons racism and injustice we're just
as rampant in north as wasn't the south and so Lincoln really had to try hard to sell this idea
to northerners that our nation was founded on the principles of freedom and liberty and that
slavery was really you know not consistent with that Lincoln had been working on the
proclamation since July of 1862 and it wanted to issue it earlier but his cabinet advisors advised
against that saying that the nation was just simply not ready for it they convinced Lincoln
that if he was going to issue this Proclamation it had to be after a major Union victory which
was hard to come by in the summer of 1862 although Antietam was not an all-out Union victory Lincoln
felt it was enough to issue the proclamation and so as soon as the proclamation was issued
printers began making collectible prints of the Emancipation Proclamation several several
are on display today in museums but the original proclamation which was a five-page document with
a signature page at the end of it is today kept at the archives in Washington DC so although Lincoln
did not officially free any enslaved people with the Emancipation Proclamation it shifted
the focus of the war from January 1863 on the war was not simply about keeping the Union together
now was a war to maintain the Union but also to ensure the Liberty for all Americans Lincoln I
believe said it best in his famous Gettysburg Address that this nation under God shall have
a new birth of freedom so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you