Question

To what extent can it be argued that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to help the Union Army win the war? Read the Emancipation Proclamation and the excerpts of secondary sources, keeping the focus question in mind. You want to create two arguments that support the thesis that Lincoln was using the Emanicipation Proclamation to win the war, that is the document was a military necessity. For each argument, you must cite the Emancipation Proclamation at least once and cite at least three of the four secondary sources.

Answer 1

Initially, the Civil War between the North and the South was fought by northerners who sought to prevent the separation of the South and preserve the Union. The abolition of slavery was not the goal of their struggle. The situation changed on September 22, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary manifesto, which stated that all slaves in the states or regions of the states in which the uprising would continue on January 1, 1863, would be freed. One hundred days later, Lincoln published the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated that “all persons held in slavery” in the territory of the rebellious regions “are henceforth and forever declared free” (The Emancipation Proclamation).

Lincoln's bold move was a military measure, thanks to which he hoped to inspire the Confederate slaves to support the Union. Since the measure was military in nature, the proclamation of the liberation of slaves was limited in many ways. It applied only to those states that left the Union, but did not change the position of slaves in the border states. Although the document did not put an end to slavery, it fundamentally affected the nature of war (Guelzo, 2006). From the moment it was proclaimed, the advancement of the allied forces meant the expansion of the territory of freedom for slaves. In addition, the Proclamation stated the admission of blacks into the ranks of the allied army and navy (The Emancipation Proclamation).

At a certain stage of the war, Lincoln realized that it was necessary to knock out the economic foundation from under the southerners, and that was slavery. Thus the Emancipation Proclamation was born, which led to the fact that slaves began to flee from the southern plantations - someone in the army of the North, someone in the northern cities. This greatly undermined the foundation of the plantation South (Rollins, 2019).

Guelzo, A. (2006). Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. Simon & Schuster.

Rollins, J. (2019). Emancipation Proclamation: The True Black History. Outskirts Press.

Step-by-step explanation: