The document Lincoln signed on New Year’s Day 1863 was the final version of a preliminary proclamation Lincoln had produced after the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. That was the bloodiest day of combat in American history, but it was perceived as a Union victory and that gave Lincoln the cover to take, as Frederick Douglas called it “the first step” toward ending slavery.
That didn’t happen until Congress passed, and the states ratified, the 13th amendment two years later in 1865.
The amendment abolished slavery and the new film Lincoln tells that story, which Washington College historian Adam Goodheart says would have never been possible without the Emancipation Proclamation.
“If universal freedom had been proclaimed early in the war it would have probably split in half the already deeply fractured northern public and quite possibly actually ended the struggle to save the union almost before it had begun,” Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening, told Here & Now’s Robin Young.
The Emancipation Proclamation regalvanized the Union war effort, turning the struggle into one to end slavery as much as to preserve the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation also made it possible for free black men to join the Union cause, and by the end of the war nearly 200,000 served in the Union Army and Navy.
The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, the subject of the film Glory, was the first all-black unit mustered in the North. Those soldiers, led by the white officer Robert Gould Shaw, left Boston to great fanfare in May of 1863. Charles and Lewis Douglass, sons of Frederick Douglass, were part of that regiment.
Boston’s Museum of African American History is hosting a series of events in 2013 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, under the banner “Freedom Rising.”
And the Massachusetts Historical Society is opening two new exhibits related to the Emancipation. The historical society has the pen Lincoln used to sign the proclamation. President Lincoln presented the pen to abolitionist George Livermore.
January 1, 1863 would be a significant day if only for the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. But the day is notable for something else. It was the day the Homestead Act took effect.
The Homestead Act allowed people to claim ownership of federal land. One of the first to file a claim was a Union Army scout named Daniel Freeman who filed his claim in the Nebraska Territory, because Nebraska wasn’t even a state yet.
Goodheart believes there is a connection between the Homestead Act and the Emancipation Proclamation, because the Homestead Act declared that the western lands of the United States would be open to everyone, including slaves, who had been freed.
Guest:
- Adam Goodheart, Washington College historian.
No comments:
Post a Comment