USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

[SOURCES]
TRUE OR FALSE:The Emancipation Proclamation should have applied to about 3.1 million slaves.

(A) ** TRUE

(B) FALSE

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -Even though it excluded areas not in rebellion, it still applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. Around 25, 000 to 75, 000 were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place.

Concept note-2: -It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control.

Concept note-3: -The Proclamation itself freed very few slaves, but it was the death knell for slavery in the United States. Eventually, the Emancipation Proclamation led to the proposal and ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which formally abolished slavery throughout the land.

Concept note-4: -That was the situation in the country on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation-a long name for a long document (it went on for five pages!). You might have heard that it freed all slaves, but that isn’t true. Only a small number of the country’s 4 million slaves were freed immediately.