The Emancipation Proclamation
During the late spring and early summer of 1862, Lincoln had come to see that he must broaden the base of the war. The Union itself was not enough; the undying vitality and drive of Northern antislavery men must be brought into full, vigorous support of the war effort, and to bring this about the United States chose to officially declare itself against slavery. The Lincoln Administration believed that slavery was the basis of the Confederate economy and leadership class and victory required its destruction. Lincoln had drafted a plan and waited for a battlefield victory to announce it. The Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln victory enough, and on September 22 he gave the Confederacy 90 days notice to return to the Union or else on January 1, 1863, all slaves held in areas in rebellion would be free. Emancipation alarmed British leaders, who expected an extremely bloody race war would result. The question then would be British intervention on humanitarian grounds. However there was no race war.
Read more about this topic: Britain In The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the words emancipation proclamation, emancipation and/or proclamation:
“When Abraham Lincoln penned the immortal emancipation proclamation he did not stop to inquire whether every man and every woman in Southern slavery did or did not want to be free. Whether women do or do not wish to vote does not affect the question of their right to do so.”
—Mary E. Haggart, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life—always growing and increasing—is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The President’s proclamation took the breath out of me this morning. He is in the hands of the Phillistines [sic] ...”
—Elizabeth Blair Lee (1818–?)