How is the emancipation proclamation part of lincolns military strategy?

Answer 1

Well Lincoln didn't actually go into the war advocating emancipation. But as the war progressed, he lost troops and was worried that France and Britain would side with the South. So by declaring the emancipation proclamation, he was able to keep France and Britain from siding with the south (as the North was now seen as the liberators of slavery) and he got troops (slaves that were freed).

Answer 2

Yes, a very urgent one. Lee's stunning series of wins in Summer '62 had brought the British close to granting recognition to the Confederacy. As the Westminster Parliament broke up for the summer recess, they said they would take Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania as the test. If he still seemed to be winning by the time they returned from holiday, they would start sending military aid. They came back to the breaking news of his defeat at Antietam. In the wake of this Northern victory, Lincoln now had the credibility to issue his Emancipation Proclamation without making it sound like a desperate measure. The war could now be made to look like a crusade against slavery (which it hadn't been), and free nations such as Britain could not aid the Confederates without looking actively pro-slavery themselves. After that Britain (and France too) had to give up their plans to side with the South.

Answer 3

US President Lincoln now understood that only a total Union victory could reunite the nation. His hopes and plans for a short war and a quick return of the rebellious states were lost to the reality of the South's ability to fight on and its commitment to do so. He now saw that an emancipation of slaves in the rebelling states as indeed a war measure. The idea that France and England were waiting on such a proclamation in order to not recognize the South was not true. At no point, except perhaps during the Trent affair, where England was going to send 10,000 troops to Canada, did England or France need to use force against the Union. They already had given the South aid by suppling arms and building warships for them.

And, neither nation was a public opinion based one. It was not public opinion that caused England to abolish slavery. Workmen in both nations helped the South. In 1863, the invasion of Mexico, by Napoleon III, was based on French nationalism. There wasn't a vote taken to attempt to make Mexico a puppet state. Lest it is forgotten, France and Great Britain did not need individual slaves, they needed and developed slave nations with their colonial empires.

Answer 4

There is no question that the first and the last versions of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was a war measure. And, it had no impact on the foreign policies of either England or France. Both nations had already recognized the Confederacy as a "de-facto" state under international law. The Confederacy met the standards of that connotation because it had a standing army, a constitution, and a fully operative central government. Additionally the US had "blockaded" the Southern ports. The blockade in itself was a measure that indicated the South was a foreign organization.England continued to build warships and supply weapons to the South throughout the war. The notion that the UK did not want to support a slave nation cannot be true inasmuch as they traded for Southern cotton before the war and during it. If the UK was on a normal relations with the United States in 1860, and it was, then it was recognizing the US as a slave nation. Public opinion did not figure into the Crown's foreign policies. To use an exaggeration to make a point, the UK would have assisted the US in the war to quickly continue the importation of cotton, instead of searching elsewhere such as Egypt for a cotton supply.

France gave loans to the South after the war began and, it was no friend of the United States as how could it explain the continuing formation of a puppet state in Mexico?

With that said, the Emancipation Proclamation was for the US's internal construction. It helped lessen the Radical wing of the Republican Party criticisms of the Lincoln administration but in no way altered the Radicals' view that President Lincoln was running the war as they believed it should be run.

With regards to the Battle of Antietam, there is another flaw in the logic of Lincoln's decision to release the Proclamation after a "victory", or even a "decisive victory".

When a small "nation" can invade the Union and fight a major battle in the Union's own territory, and be allowed to "escape", to fight again is not an overwhelming victory at all. On the other hand If, the North had invaded the South and won a decisive battle, destroying a major Confederate army on its own turf, then the required victory measure would have been correct. Instead, the reverse could well have taken place.

With all that said, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation can now be defined as a "war measure".

President Lincoln did not expect the South to comply with the measures of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was not an ultimatum at all. Lincoln knew this because he religiously tried to convince the slave holding border states to give up slavery via the most generous terms. Payment to the slave owners and a gradual end to slavery over a long as two generations. If the border states were not going to give up their slaves, then neither were the Southern states.

With that in mind, the term of war measure, in reality was a reformulation of war aims that implied a change in Lincoln's strategy. President Lincoln, by July of 1862 had abandoned all hope that a series of quick and impressive victories would demonstrate and demoralize the South into negotiations with the North. At that point, perhaps the ultimatum of a gradual abolishment of slavery and compensation would not only save thousands of lives, but keep the United States strong by not having a huge part of its economy wrecked in a long war. He gave up that hope and now believed that a war of subjugation towards the South was the only method to end the rebellion.

Lincoln was not a cruel leader, the reformulation, he hoped would also help end the war quickly. The problem would turn out to be that the military requirements to end the war were not met. This was due to the ineptitude of the Union's war making power, and the unexpected resistance of the Southern armies and leaders.