In December 1861, Lincoln sent his first annual message to Congress (the State of the Union address, but then usually written and not mentioned as such). In it, he praised the system of free labour, which placed human rights above property rights; He advocated for laws regulating the status of smuggled slaves and slaves in loyal states, perhaps by buying their freedom with federal taxes, and also funding strictly voluntary colonization efforts. [43] In January 1862, Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, called for all-out war against rebellion to include the emancipation of slaves, arguing that emancipation through the forced loss of slave labor would ruin the rebel economy. 13. In March 1862, Congress passed a law prohibiting the return of slaves, prohibiting “any officer or person of military or naval service of the United States” from returning fugitive slaves to their owners. According to a law signed by Lincoln, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, and the owners were compensated.[44] [45] The constitutional question is frivolous. Prior to the Civil War, the Constitution would not have authorized the federal government to capture and free slaves, and yet Curtis and Parker and all those who dealt with the issue admitted that the Union could free slaves who fled to its lines during the war. They realized that war conferred an uncompensated power of emancipation, and the effect on the slave owner is the same whether he loses his property by confiscation or by decree. Conflicting advice to free all slaves or not to free them at all was presented to Lincoln publicly and privately. Thomas Nast, a cartoonist during the Civil War and in the late 1800s who is considered the “father of American caricatures,” composed many works, including a two-page page showing the transition from slavery to civilization after President Lincoln signed the proclamation. Nast believed in equality of opportunity and equality for all, including African slaves or free blacks.

A mass rally in Chicago on September 7, 1862 called for the immediate and universal emancipation of slaves. A delegation led by William W. Patton met with the president at the White House on September 13. Lincoln had declared in peacetime that he had no constitutional authority to free slaves. Even when used as a war power, emancipation was a risky political act. Public opinion as a whole opposed it. [60] There would be strong opposition among Copperhead`s Democrats and an uncertain reaction from loyal border states. Delaware and Maryland already had a high percentage of free blacks: 91.2% and 49.7%, respectively, in 1860. [61] Since Carnahan finds no support for the freedom prescribed in traditional practice, he finds it elsewhere.

He notes that Emmerich de Vattel, the author of a classic pre-civil war work on international law, asserts that “liberating an oppressed people is a noble fruit of victory; It is [also] a valuable advantage to win a loyal friend. [17] Following the position of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts,[18] Carnahan argues that this doctrine of the “oppressed people” justifies the prescribed emancipation of enemy slaves, and he suggests that Lincoln used this doctrine to argue for his edict of freedom. “By declaring that the U.S. government immediately recognized the freedom of all slaves of the Confederacy,” Carnahan explains. “Lincoln treated them as oppressed people, not as property, and asked for their support as human beings.” [19] In his support for the Emancipation Proclamation, Whiting cited the widely recognized right of belligerents to conquer or destroy enemy property, and then stated categorically that martial law allowed a belligerent to free an enemy`s slaves by proclamation. [10] He cited cases in which slaves were allegedly freed by decree. However, by examining these examples, it becomes clear that the decree was used as an incentive to bring slaves to the lines of the liberator, with freedom achieved through physical liberation or domination over slaves, not by decree. In July 1862, Lincoln informed his cabinet that he would issue an emancipation proclamation, but that it would exempt the so-called frontier states, which had slave owners but remained loyal to the Union. His cabinet convinced him to make this announcement only after a Union victory. Lincoln`s opportunity arose after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. On September 22, the president announced that slaves in areas still in rebellion would be free within 100 days.

When contemporary supporters and critics of the Emancipation Proclamation intervened, its constitutionality was a topical issue. The Thirteenth Amendment raised the issue, but it was recently revived in a full book treatment. In a letter to Albert Hodges dated April 4, 1864, Lincoln described his path to emancipation and justified his changes of position. [8] He had always hated slavery, he said, but “never understood that the presidency gave me an absolute right to act officially according to that judgment and feeling.” However, his constitutional oath to respect the Constitution imposed the duty to protect the Union “by all indispensable means. I felt that measures that would otherwise be unconstitutional could become legal by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution. He revoked Frémont and Hunter`s Emancipation Orders because he believed emancipation was not an “indispensable necessity” when they were issued, and he removed offensive language from Cameron`s message for the same reason. After the frontier states rejected his proposal for compensated emancipation, “I was pushed to the best of my ability,” Lincoln wrote, “to the alternative of either abandoning the Union, and thus the Constitution, or placing a strong hand on the colored element. I chose the latter. He did not explain why compensated emancipation in the border states might have remained his hand, but he may have thought that free frontier states would make slavery in the postwar confederacy untenable and that emancipation in the border states would undermine Confederate support in those states. If there are those who would not save the Union, if they could not save slavery at the same time, then I do not agree with them. If there are those who would not save the Union, if they could not abolish slavery at the same time, I do not agree with them.

My ultimate goal in this struggle is to save the Union, not to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would, and if I could save it by freeing all slaves, I would; And if I could save him by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would. What I do against slavery and the black race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forgive, I forgive, because I do not believe that it would help to save the Union. I have stated my purpose here in accordance with my conception of official duty; and I have no intention of changing my often expressed personal desire that all people may be free. [56] The proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as Union armies advanced and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was contested even in the North.