"Emancipation Proclamation"



PROMPT: Did President Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 primarily for humanitarian reasons, military necessity, or to secure his legacy?



The Emancipation Proclamation is a executive order put into effect by the late President Abraham Lincoln. This proclamation was put into effect to free all of the enslaved people held in the South. This proclamation was adopted on January 1, 1863. This is also an effect of the Civil War. The Civil War is a main part that shapes America's history as a nation.

The Civil War happened between 1861-1865 for a total of four years. This war had begun because of uncompromising differences between the North and the South on slaves that were not free and free slaves that had rights. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the South's secession from the North. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.

President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1 for humanitarian reasons, and military necessity. He issued it for military necessity because if he had not, the country would have been in turmoil and chaos by fighting if all slaves in the South would be free. He also did it for humanitarian reasons because he did not want a war killing tons of men in battle and he wanted to keep peace between the two main parts of the country. He says that he wants the rebellion (the Confederates) to be suppressed and for there to be freedom and peace.

While in doing this, President Lincoln sealed/secured his legacy. I don't think that Lincoln knew he was doing so, but in the process he would go down in history as one of the most important presidents of this country. Even though not every slave was free (such as Irish, and Caribbean slaves) it was still a good thing that he passed this proclamation. He has freed the slaves from all of these states: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.

This document is an important and vital part of the United States history as a country. Where would we be without this proclamation? We would most likely have two countries in North America -- the United States and the Confederate States of America. People in the South would still be slaves and have to conform to the Confederates laws. I am happy that this document was passed so as an African American I will not be someone's property.