[music playing]
And if slavery's not wrong, nothing is.
I must have everyone on board--
the military, public, and the cabinet.
CHRISTLY COLEMAN: Over the summer,
Lincoln is talking to people about what will become
the Emancipation Proclamation.
He's talking to his war department.
He's talking to the State Department.
EDNA GREENE MEDFORD: Abolitionists were clamoring
for Lincoln to do something.
They were saying, the Confederacy
has these Black men impressed into military laborers.
Free these people, you know, we can use
them to help us win the war.
Black men had been saying it all along,
White men and women started saying it as well.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Lincoln still
believed that the Constitution made
it impossible for the government to emancipate the slaves,
because Constitution protected property
and property was slaves.
BARACK OBAMA: For political figures who
have a moral compass, there is a constant warring
inside you of "When do I just blurt out what I think?"
versus "When do I bite my tongue and see
if I can work something out?
Am I betraying the ideals that I care about?
Or am I playing a long game to advance them?"
STAN MCCHRYSTAL: There's a clear learning curve,
as he learns the strategy of what
will be necessary to win a war of this magnitude
and this complexity.
He exercised war powers like few presidents
have ever in our history.
And they were pretty upsetting to people,
but he understood that he wasn't just the president,
he was the commander in chief as well.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: So that's when
he begins to think about the fact
that, I don't have the constitutional power
to emancipate the slaves in the Union as president,
but maybe as commander-in-chief I
can emancipate the slaves in the South as a military necessity.
But Lincoln would have to persuade the cabinet, the army,
and the people that the Emancipation Proclamation
was the right thing to do.
That on the first day of January
in the year of our Lord, 1863, all persons held as slaves
within any state or designated part of the state
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.
What kind of villain do you think
the papers will make of me?
It won't be pretty.
I expect abuse from the Democrat papers,
but the friendly ones, they'll see the wisdom.
I worry about enlistment.
They'll say it's a war against slavery, not for the Union.
Well, my word has gone out to the people.
I won't take it back.
[music playing]
GREG JACKSON: Lincoln's the master of this,
at taking battles and being able to spin them for his needs
politically.
So that was enough for Lincoln to be
able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation
from a position of strength, as opposed to weakness.
So Antietam was on September 17th.
By September 22nd, Lincoln was issuing the proclamation.
That preliminary proclamation said
you have 100 days to either come back into the Union,
or I'm going to free your enslaved laborers.
RICHARD BLACKETT: Many in the world, particularly in Britain,
saw it as just another political move
to undermine the Confederacy, and he wasn't
genuinely committed to it.
But on the other hand, for many in Britain,
that becomes the moment when Lincoln emerges
as the great emancipator.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: So Lincoln had waited until the Battle
of Antietam to announce that he was
going to issue on the Emancipation Proclamation
in January.
And between September and January,
the blowback was so great that many people
thought he might not sign it.
The Republicans lost lots of seats in the midterm elections.
The conservative Democrats, who were against Emancipation,
doubled in number, leaving the Republicans
with a thin majority.
What people in the North feared is
that now the South would never come to the bargaining table.
This would mean the war would be prolonged forever.
Lincoln's aware of all of these things.
He's being political about it, but he's
also being thoughtful about it.
RICHARD BLACKETT: On New Year's Eve,
people are gathered in Black communities
throughout the North.
People are just waiting on tenterhooks.
There was what we call "watch night" where Douglas was
with a group of abolitionist friends waiting to see
if Lincoln would keep his word.
[interposing voices]
Well, no telegram yet.
He said he'd sign it today, and I
believe he's a man of his word.
I can wait a few minutes longer.
I don't want folks to think I doubted this.
[music playing]
My whole soul's in it.
[music playing]
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: The morning
that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,
there'd been a big New Year's reception at the White House,
and he had shaken hundreds of hands.
So when he went finally to sign the Emancipation Proclamation,
his own hand was numb and shaking.
He put the pen down.
He said, if ever my soul were in an act, it is in this act.
But if I sign with a shaking hand,
posterity will say he hesitated.
So he waited and waited until he could sign with an unusually
bold and clear hand.
CLINT SMITH: It cannot be overstated how consequential
this document was.
With the stroke of a pen, Lincoln, through the authority
that he has in that moment, frees
millions of enslaved people in these Confederate states.
[music playing]
It's coming over the wire now.
[cheers and applause]
KENNETH MORRIS: There was a great celebration
that broke out.
You know, Douglas was said to have a great baritone singing
voice, and I'm sure he was out there singing
at the top of his lungs in celebration
that this document was finally signed, which would
change the balance of the war.