The Complexities of the Emancipation Proclamation

On January 1, 1863, after a long series of cabinet meetings and ana agonizing reflection, President Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. On the basis of this act, many view Lincoln as the ‘Great Emancipator.’ The truth behind this act, though, is far more complex.

In 1862, the war between the Union and the rebellious Confederacy was not going well for the Union. The Confederates had won a number of significant battles and there was a danger that Britain and France were about to officially recognize the Confederacy as a separate nation, which would have further imperiled efforts to restore the Union. Lincoln, who had long felt that slavery was an immoral institution, but who, at the same time, did not view Blacks as the equal of Whites, and who had as a main objective ‘to save the Union, not to save or destroy slavery,’ was faced with a dilemma—how to turn the tide of war.

His hope was that the proclamation would stimulate a rush of the South’s enslaved people into the Union army, thereby depriving the Confederacy of its labor force, which, he felt, would undermine the ability of the Confederates to conduct the war.

A number of things point to the geostrategic nature of the proclamation; it was designed to turn the tide of war, not to achieve freedom for the millions of enslaved Blacks in the United States. First, he waited until there’d been a significant Union military victory, the September 1862 battle at Antietam, when Union forces forced Robert E. Lee’s forces to retreat back into Virginia after a failed attempt to take territory in Maryland north of Washington, to issue the proclamation. Second, and in many ways perhaps most important, the proclamation only declared freedom for enslaved people in those areas in rebellion, who were outside federal control, as of January 1, 1863. Thus, enslaved people in the South in areas controlled by Union forces, and those in border states that didn’t secede—including the District of Columbia—remained in bondage.

While Lincoln’s record on the subject of slavery and the status of Blacks is mixed, it is fair to say that he did evolve over time in regard to the question of slavery. In the present day, attitudes are mixed on a number of issues surrounding this dark chapter in American history. But for me, as a student of history and as a descendant of formerly enslaved people, there are a few things that stand out.

While I don’t view Lincoln as the ‘Great Emancipator’, I acknowledge that he was the leader this country needed at that time, and that he did what he had to do to preserve the Union and defend the Constitution. As for emancipation, we should never forget that the 1862 proclamation didn’t bring freedom to all the enslaved—even in the rebellious states. In Texas, my home state, word of the 1862 proclamation didn’t reach enslaved people until June 19, 1865, when Union troops landed in Galveston. Juneteenth, as this date is called, became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, but as a native of Texas, I can remember celebrating it every year. It became an official holiday in Texas in 1979, where it had been celebrated as ‘Jubilee Day’ by the state’s Black population since 1865. While slavery in the United States was formally abolished in December 1865, after the end of the Civil War, with the passage of the 13^th Amendment, Juneteenth is seen as the date of our unofficial freedom.

A little-known fact about the end of bondage in my home state. Even after the arrival of Union troops and the announcement of the abolition of the practice, many White farmers withheld the news until after harvest season, thus keeping a large number of the 250,000 enslaved Blacks in the state in chains.

So, if you detect a note of skepticism from me in regard to a lot of the so-called ‘facts’ of American history, this is the reason. Politicians spin the facts to suit their agenda—on both sides of the issue. When you peel the BS aside, though, you find that there is more to it than either side claims.

I would argue, in fact, that there remains in the U.S., a number of people who are trying to mask the fact that we’re all free at last.

Happy New Year!