Militia Act of 1862 - Second Confiscation Act and Emancipation

Second Confiscation Act and Emancipation

Alongside the Militia Act, the Second Confiscation Act issued on July 17 declared all slaves belonging to a rebel were free. Given the power to confiscate slaves, Congress proclaimed: "That every person who shall hereafter commit the crime of treason against the United States, and shall be adjudged guilty thereof, shall suffer death, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free." Following the Confiscation Act of 1861, The Second Confiscation Act stripped any persons in rebellion of any claim to their slaves and made the former slaves free. In different ways the two acts employed black manpower.

Introducing the use of contracted black workers into the Civil War, the Militia Act of 1862 marked the war’s transformation to preserve the Union into a reconstruction to create new order. Indeed, "the participation of the black soldier was perhaps the most revolutionary feature of the Civil War." For the first time during the Civil War Union members were openly admitting the value of African American support in Congress. Congress had finally settled the question "whether the United States shall employ the labor of a race of men whose interests, whose sympathies, whose whole hearts are with the loyal people of the United States in suppressing this rebellion."

By its issue date, the general public of the Union accepted act’s necessity. McPherson’s studies show that as the "orthern public opinion was being gradually converted by the pressures of events," members of Congress came to more clearly support the move to use black soldiers. Professor of History at Yale David W. Blight, too, believes that "throughout the summer of 1862, events rapidly made northern public opinion more favorable to the use of black troops." Lincoln became ready to exercise the power bestowed in him to "employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary." "I have no hesitation," he declared in his message to Congress, "and I am ready to say now, I think it is proper for our military commanders to employ as laborers as many persons of African descent as can be used to advantage."

Yet despite their new welcome into the Potomac Army, blacks were left to grapple with the still-present discrimination throughout the nation. With the establishment of unequal pay in the Militia Act, a contradiction formed between the opportunity for African-Americans to earn equal rights and the degrading offer of lessened pay. For this reason, the act’s appearance has deceived many historians and has left the document not well understood.

The Militia Act of 1862 draws attention to the legalities involved in wartime politics. Perhaps Professor Herman Belz’s work, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era, clarifies the "historical perspective" best by focusing on "the additional exigencies of law, politics, and wartime circumstances." The Militia Act was a product of the legislative branch- created as a war necessity to allow the army black soldier recruits. Yet whether Congress was right to assume that the North could not have won the war as soon as it did- or at all- without black assistance is still up for discussion.