Abraham Lincoln, The Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th Amendment by B. J. Best

Author:B. J. Best
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
Published: 2016-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Many Northerners, particularly Republicans, were thrilled by Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation into law. They believed the United States could not be a free country unless all its citizens were free. Some Democrats, though, only wanted peace. They wanted the Union and the Confederacy to agree to stop the war. They felt that emancipation only made the problem worse. Certainly, the Southern states hated the Emancipation Proclamation. They were fighting to keep slavery legal.

Black Americans were joyous upon the news of the abolition of slavery. They could no longer be legally forced to work for someone else under inhumane conditions. Frederick Douglass was a famous black orator, or speaker, who gave many antislavery speeches across the North. About a month after Lincoln freed the slaves, Douglass spoke at a school in New York City. He said:

I congratulate you, upon what may be called the greatest event of our nation’s history, if not the greatest event of the century. ... Color is no longer a crime or a badge of bondage. At last the out-spread wings of the American Eagle afford shelter and protection to men of all colors, all countries and climes, and the long oppressed black man may honorably fall or gloriously flourish under the star-spangled banner. I stand here tonight not only as a colored man and an American, but by the express decision of the Attorney-General of the United States, as a colored citizen, having, in common with all other citizens, a stake in the safety, prosperity, honor, and glory of a common country. We are all liberated by this proclamation.

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