USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

[SOURCES]
Which side had more momentum after the Emancipation Proclamation?

(A) ** The Union

(B) The Confederacy

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -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-2: -The Emancipation Proclamation changed the meaning and purpose of the Civil War. The war was no longer just about preserving the Union-it was also about freeing the slaves. Foreign powers such as Britain and France lost their enthusiasm for supporting the Confederacy.

Concept note-3: -It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union’s available manpower.

Concept note-4: -Domestically, reactions were mixed. Predictably, Southern newspapers denounced the action, and reported that Jefferson Davis had announced that the confederate army would no longer exchange hostages and would kill rather than taking hostage any African-American soliders.