Emancipation Proclamation

FREED SOUTHERN SLAVES

Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation (first announcing it on Sept. 22, 1862, and putting it into effect on January 1, 1863), declaring slaves free in all areas then in rebellion against the Union. It authorized the Union armed forces to carry this into effect as they took control of areas of the Confederacy. When they received fleeing slaves, they were no longer to return them to their masters. The proclamation freed 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the USA. The Proclamation also authorized the Union armies to recruit these freed slaves to fight. A large number joined the Union Army and made a major contribution to the war effort during the final two years of the war.

A claim that it "freed no one" (see below) is inaccurate. Yes, it only did so as the Union Army was able to move forward. But that is the same for any law or proclamation --it is a 'dead letter' until backed up by power (sometimes armed force). And this proclamation specifically provided for its own enforcement. In fact, from 1863 through mid-1865 (when on June 19 the order was announced in Texas), the Proclamation was the main instrument by which slaves in the South were actually freed.

Note that Lincoln took this step under his "war powers" as Commander-in-chief. He had no general authority under the Constitution to free slaves elsewhere (especially in the border states that had remained loyal to the Union). The criticism of his not freeing slaves in the Union misses this point - the Proclamation could not free these slaves, no matter how much Lincoln might have wanted to.

PART OF LARGER PLAN TO FREE ALL SLAVES

Critics also ignore the fact that Lincoln & Congress were, even before the Emancipation Proclamation working on Constitutional methods to end slavery throughout the nation. Lincoln, already in 1861, had begun to urge border Union slave states to vote an end to slavery themselves (which some eventually did). His original proposal was "compensated emancipation", providing financial help to states that emancipated their slaves. In fact, Lincoln and Congress had already used this method in April 1862 to free slaves in Washington DC (the one place they had the Constitutional authority to do so!)

Lincoln and the Republicans also worked on a method to free all slaves in the Union, as well as to assure that those freed under the Emancipation Proclamation remained free after the war ended (since a court challenge could conceivably reinstate slavery). This was accomplished by means of the 13th amendment to the Constitution in 1865.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The Proclamation was not, at first, highly regarded overseas. Britain was not impressed by it, and stayed its hand at recognizing the Confederacy not so much because of the Proclamation, but because the victory at Antietam suggested a Southern victory was not a certainty. The French government did not really care about the slavery issue or 'bad press', but preferred to recognize the South only after Britain did.

DOMESTIC POLITICS

One other effect - in the short term, as Lincoln expected, the Proclamation cost him and his party at home. It contributed to a number of key losses in the 1862 elections. This makes it all the more remarkable that Lincoln chose to announce the plan in September, rather than waiting until after those elections.

Claim that it had no real effect :

The Emancipation Proclamation merely announced Lincoln's intention to free slaves that it had no power to free. No slaves were freed (not even on paper) until the actual Executive Order was signed over three months later. Even then, it specifically exempted the Slave States that had not seceded (like Kentucky and Maryland). It also specifically exempted any State that had not seceded or that had been captured by Union troops and any county that had been captured by Union troops. In other words, slavery REMAINED LEGAL in all Slave States and Slave Counties that were under Union control. The only places where slavery became illegal was in those States and Counties that didn't recognize the authority of the US government anyway. So, in actual effect, the Emancipation Proclamation freed exactly zero slaves.

Though as the North conquered more territory in the South, slavery immediately became illegal in the new States and Counties conquered. But it was the Union Army, not the Emancipation Proclamation, that conquered those States and Counties.

(Some argue that some slaves in already-Union-controlled areas were freed immediately upon the issuance of the executive order, and the estimate of the number of slaves thus freed varies between 20,000 and 50,000. If this is, in fact, the case, then the executive order was, in fact, in direct opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation, which exempted all states or parts of states under Union control. So, once again, the Emancipation Proclamation itself freed no one.)

The Emancipation Proclamation, in itself, was totally worthless. Moreover, it was nothing more than a political stunt and one of the most dishonest political acts of American history. It was bait to get the States in Rebellion to rejoin the Union, under the promise that they would be allowed to keep their slaves. It even provided a means by which States in rebellion could prove that they were no longer in rebellion (election of representation of the State in the US Congress was "deemed conclusive evidence"). Yet, Lincoln never intended to let any Southern States keep their slaves. It was a classic "bait and switch". Of course, none of the Southern States fell for it.

By March 5, 1836, Col. William Barrett Travis had known for several days that his situation inside the old Spanish mission called the Alamo had become hopeless.

Several thousand soldiers under the command of Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had Travis and some 189 other defenders surrounded.

The young Texas colonel - only 26 - was a lawyer, not a professional military man, but Travis knew enough history to understand that in a siege, the army on the outside usually prevails over the army on the inside.

So he gathered his fellow defenders that Saturday afternoon and gave them a speech.

"We must die," he began. "Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save our lives, but to choose the manner of our death."

He saw three possibilities: Surrender and summary execution, trying to fight their way out only to be "butchered" by Mexican lancers or "remain in this fort…resist every assault, and to sell our lives as dearly as possible."

Then, with a flourish, Travis drew his sword and slowly marked a line in the dirt. "I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with me to come across this line."

Young Tapley Holland made his decision quickly, proclaiming "I am ready to die for my country!" as he jumped over the line. It's hard to picture it as a stampede - the men knew they were voting to die - but all but two of them walked over the line. Co-commander Jim Bowie, lying sick on a cot, asked some of his men to carry him across. Only Louis Moses Rose, a French soldier of fortune, remained behind.

That night, Rose slipped out of the Alamo and managed to make it through the enemy lines. He ended up in Louisiana and supposedly lived until 1850.

Every Texan knows what happened the morning after Rose made his escape. In the predawn of March 6, Santa Anna's forces breached the walls and killed every Texas combatant.

No one disputes the outcome of the battle, but historians are still fighting over whether the sword story is true. Unfortunately for die-hard Texans, the current thinking is that it probably did not happen. On the other hand, so far as is known, anyone who could have vouched for the story died in the final assault that morning 170 years ago this March 6.

The dramatic tale did not appear in print until 1873, nearly 40 years after the battle. The man who wrote the story for the Texas Almanac - William Physick Zuber - later admitted that while he reconstructed major portions of Travis' speech, he included only one paragraph of fiction. Unfortunately, he did not say which paragraph that was.

Zuber might have been inspired by what happened in December 1835. Ben Milam, during the Texian siege of San Antonio de Bexar, did draw a line and urge his fellow revolutionaries to follow him in attacking the soldiers of Mexican Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos.

"Who will follow old Ben Milam?" he asked.

The Texans won the battle but Milam lost his life in the effort.

But other than Zuber's telling of the tale, which he said he heard from his parents, who had given Rose shelter for a time after his escape from the Alamo, no documentation has been found to support it.

What is irrefutable is that the story of Travis drawing a line with his sword - be it truth or legend - gave Texas, America and eventually, the world, one of its most enduring metaphors.

Travis' line in the dirt - people did not start saying sand until the first President Bush used the term in 1990 before the first Gulf War - is a story equal to Homer or Shakespeare, as compelling as almost anything in the Bible or from the best Hollywood screen writer.

As J. Frank Dobie put it, "It is a line that not all the piety nor wit of research will ever blot out. It is a grand canyon cut into the bedrock of human emotions and historical impulses."

The line-in-the-sand metaphor gets its power because it represents something that is absolutely true: Making a courageous decision often comes with a high price.

On the upside, that courageous decision usually proves to be the right one, even if it takes years for people to appreciate it. Think Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. It might cost your life or your office, but chances are, someday you will be remembered for doing the right thing by crossing that figurative line in the sand.

American Independence Day, July 4th, is a celebration of our declaration of independence from Britain, a statement that we intended to be our own nation, rather than continue on as a powerless colony Britain.

Emancipation Day refers to when American slaves were freed from bondage-- almost a hundred years later. Juneteenth is still celebrated today, in remembrance of both Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and of the tremendous delay in the news spreading to some of the slave states. June 19th 1865 marked the date Emancipation was finally enforced in Texas, some 2 1/2 years after Lincoln's 1862 proclamation.