The Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation

     Abraham Lincoln is often credited with freeing the slaves in America when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but whether or not this actually resulted in abolition is a question constantly up for debate (Emancipation Proclamation).  Lincoln himself did not have any particular position on slavery; his loyalties lied with the country first and moral duties to black Americans second.  As he states here, he did not care about the rights or freedom of the slaves, but rather the Union was the only thing on his mind: “my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery, If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

     The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the states where the federal government, which Abraham Lincoln presided over, actually held power.  The northern part of the Union had been free for some time before Lincoln signed the document, which merely affirmed the position that the North already had on slave holding and free states.  The South, which still actually had slaves, did not need to respect the document that Lincoln signed into existence because he did not have any authority over what was then a sovereign country called The Confederacy. 

     Lincoln had a plan from the time he set foot into office to try to free slaves, argues Owens: “to achieve this goal, he planned to pursue a policy of legislated, gradual, compensated emancipation from the very outset of his presidency.  He believed he could convince Congress to appropriate funds for compensating slave owners to gradually free their slaves.  His plan was to begin where slavery was weakest: in the northern most slave states, especially Delaware.”  Except that Lincoln never enacted this plan, and it took several years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed for the slaves to actually have their freedom. 

     The plan was, however, a good idea; purchasing slaves from slave owners would have worked quite well as the main concern of the slave holding constituency was labor.  The slaveholders needed a base of laborers, from which they would delegate work on their plantations or farms.  The industry of the South needed many cheap workers if it wanted to stay afloat.  Cotton had to be provided at cheap prices in order to sell well to the mills that spun it into clothes, and if the cost of labor was to go up then the plantation owners would be forced to raise their prices to accommodate, less they take a pay cut themselves.  Providing monetary compensation for the slaves to the owners by the government would allow the slave owning citizens to hire their former slaves as free, paid, working men.