The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

The Emancipation Proclamation was a document of military necessity. President Lincoln issued it as commander in chief and accepted full responsibility for it. He used a Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, to give the Confederate states an ultimatum: end the insurrection or see those they had enslaved permanently freed. The rebelling states were given until January 1, 1863 to decide. The Proclamation did not apply to or address enslavement in the Border States, in the North, or in parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control.

President Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It went beyond anything he or Congress had previously proposed. The Proclamation did not distinguish between loyal and disloyal enslavers, and it freed enslaved people in areas the Union did not control. Emancipation would be immediate and without compensation to the enslavers. For the first time, Black soldiers could be enrolled in the U.S. armed forces. And most significantly, it committed the federal government to finding a way to end enslavement.

At the same time, it was a complicated and limited step towards extending rights and freedoms to Black Americans. Enslaved people in Confederate areas had been "set free", but had not yet been "made free". The Proclamation’s implementation would depend on Union victories, and the freedoms and rights it promised would not be permanent unless they were written into the Constitution as amendments. The Proclamation did not address the future status and social and political rights of the former enslaved persons. Lincoln urged newly freed men and women to refrain from violence and to "labor faithfully for reasonable wages." The Proclamation did not include a moral argument against enslavement, leading abolitionist Lydia Maria Child to characterize it as "merely a war-measure". Nonetheless, abolitionist Frederick Douglass welcomed the document as a "first chapter" in a new national history. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed the claims of the enslaved that this was a war for freedom.

Galveston, Texas was the last Confederate-controlled city to be reached by Union forces and the final city where the proclamation was read and enacted. This milestone, June 19, 1865, is now celebrated as a federal holiday known as Juneteenth.

Forty-eight copies of this rare "Authorized Edition" of the Emancipation Proclamation were created in 1864 and sold at the Philadelphia Great Central Sanitary Fair to raise funds for the aid and care of Union troops. This is one of only 26 copies of this edition known to survive.

Emancipation Proclamation, "Authorized Edition". Signed by President Abraham Lincoln; Secretary of State William H. Seward; and John Nicolay, Private Secretary to the President. Washington, D.C., January 1, 1863 [Philadelphia: Frederick Leypoldt for George Henry Boker and Charles Godfrey Leland, 1864].

The Document:

Transcription:

January 1, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.