USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

[SOURCES]
What did the proclamation do?

(A) :):(

(B) It ended the civil war

(C) It freed all the slaves

(D) ** It made the eradication of slavery an explicit war goal in addition to the goal of reuniting the union.

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free."

Concept note-2: -From the first days of the Civil War, enslaved people had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically.

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: -Militarily, the Emancipation Proclamation opened the way to the next logical step in this process of weakening the South while strengthening the North: enrolling blacks as soldiers in the Union army. The manpower boon to the Union was substantial. Some 180, 000 black soldiers served in the Union army.