151-488: The Emancipation Proclamation , officially Proclamation 95 , was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War . The Proclamation had the effect of changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped
302-521: A federal circuit court judge, ruled that the arrest of Merryman was unconstitutional without Congressional authorization, which Lincoln could not then secure: The President, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, cannot suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus , nor authorize any military officer to do so. The Merryman decision created a sensation, but its immediate impact
453-463: A war-measure , I don't see the immediate benefit of it, ... as the slaves are sure of being free at any rate, with or without an Emancipation Act." Booker T. Washington , as a boy of 9 in Virginia, remembered the day in early 1865: As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of
604-543: A "Maryland Line" in the Army of Northern Virginia which eventually consisted of one infantry regiment, one infantry battalion, two cavalry battalions and four battalions of artillery. Most of these volunteers tended to hail from southern and eastern counties of the state, while northern and western Maryland furnished more volunteers for the Union armies. Captain Bradley T. Johnson refused
755-708: A draw, was strategically enough of a Union victory to give Lincoln the opportunity to issue, in September 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation . It did not affect Maryland. In July 1864 the Battle of Monocacy was fought near Frederick, Maryland as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 . Monocacy was a tactical victory for the Confederate States Army but a strategic defeat, as the one-day delay inflicted on
906-574: A golden opportunity to defeat Lee decisively. The armies met near the town of Sharpsburg by the Antietam Creek . Losses were extremely heavy on both sides; The Union suffered 12,401 casualties with 2,108 dead. Confederate casualties were 10,318 with 1,546 dead. This represented 25% of the Federal force and 31% of the Confederate. More Americans died in battle on September 17, 1862, than on any other day in
1057-552: A greatdeel [ sic ] about it and profess to be very angry." In May 1863, a few months after the Proclamation took effect, the Confederacy passed a law demanding "full and ample retaliation" against the U.S. for such measures. The Confederacy stated that black U.S. soldiers captured while fighting against the Confederacy would be tried as slave insurrectionists in civil courts—a capital offense with an automatic sentence of death. Less than
1208-471: A group or situation or to call attention to certain issues or events. For instance, George H. W. Bush issued a proclamation to honor veterans of World War II, and Ronald Reagan called attention to the health of the nation's eyes by proclaiming a Save Your Vision Week and issued Proclamation 5497, which recognized National Theatre Week. Maryland in the American Civil War During
1359-505: A hundred days fair notice of my purpose, to all the States and people, within which time they could have turned it wholly aside, by simply again becoming good citizens of the United States. They chose to disregard it, and I made the peremptory proclamation on what appeared to me to be a military necessity. And being made, it must stand". Lincoln continued, however, that the states included in the proclamation could "adopt systems of apprenticeship for
1510-509: A law signed by Lincoln, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, and owners were compensated. On June 19, 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in all current and future United States territories (though not in the states), and President Lincoln quickly signed the legislation. This act effectively repudiated the 1857 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in
1661-401: A liberator." Historian Richard Striner argues that "for years" Lincoln's letter has been misread as "Lincoln only wanted to save the Union." However, within the context of Lincoln's entire career and pronouncements on slavery this interpretation is wrong, according to Striner. Rather, Lincoln was softening the strong Northern white supremacist opposition to his imminent emancipation by tying it to
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#17328373615201812-520: A more aggressive attack on the Confederacy and faster emancipation of the slaves: "On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one ... intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel ... that the rebellion, if crushed tomorrow, would be renewed if slavery were left in full vigor and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union." Lincoln responded in his open letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862: If there be those who would not save
1963-455: A new state constitution abolishing slavery in the state went into effect on November 1, 1864. The Union-occupied counties of eastern Virginia and parishes of Louisiana, which had been exempted from the Proclamation, both adopted state constitutions that abolished slavery in April 1864. In early 1865, Tennessee adopted an amendment to its constitution prohibiting slavery. The Proclamation was issued in
2114-528: A number of fellow citizens: to insist on his [Hicks] issuing his proclamation for the Legislature to convene, believing that this body (and not himself and his party) should decide the fate of our state...if the Governor and his party continued to refuse this demand that it would be necessary to depose him. Responding to pressure, on April 22 Governor Hicks finally announced that the state legislature would meet in
2265-454: A poem which would be put to music and, in 1939, become the state song , " Maryland, My Maryland " (it remained the official state song until March 2021). The song's lyrics urged Marylanders to "spurn the Northern scum" and "burst the tyrant's chain" – in other words, to secede from the Union. Confederate States Army bands would later play the song after they crossed into Maryland territory during
2416-399: A preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he had determined to issue after the next Union military victory. Therefore, this letter, was in truth, an attempt to position the impending announcement in terms of saving the Union, not freeing slaves as a humanitarian gesture. It was one of Lincoln's most skillful public relations efforts, even if it has cast longstanding doubt on his sincerity as
2567-548: A preliminary version and a final version. The former, issued on September 22, 1862, was a preliminary announcement outlining the intent of the latter, which took effect 100 days later on January 1, 1863, during the second year of the Civil War. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was Abraham Lincoln's declaration that all slaves would be permanently freed in all areas of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The ten affected states were individually named in
2718-472: A presidential proclamation does not have the force of law. If an Act of Congress is passed that would take effect upon the happening of a contingent event, and the president later proclaims that the event happened, the proclamation would then have the force of law. Presidential proclamations are often dismissed as a practical tool for policy making because they are considered to be largely ceremonial or symbolic. The administrative weight of these proclamations
2869-808: A prominent Southern sympathizer arrested by the military. The first fatalities of the war happened during the Baltimore riot of 1861 on April 18–19. The single bloodiest day of combat in American military history occurred during the first major Confederate invasion of the North in the Maryland Campaign , just north above the Potomac River near Sharpsburg in Washington County , at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. The battle of Antietam, though tactically
3020-494: A quandary. While throughout the war they had continued to espouse the racist positions of their party and their disdain of the concerns of slaves, they did see the Proclamation as a viable military tool against the South and worried that opposing it might demoralize troops in the Union army. The question would continue to trouble them and eventually lead to a split within their party as the war progressed. Lincoln further alienated many in
3171-671: A single vote. The areas of Southern and Eastern Shore Maryland , especially those on the Chesapeake Bay (which neighbored Virginia), which had prospered on the tobacco trade and slave labor, were generally sympathetic to the South, while the central and western areas of the state, especially Marylanders of German origin , had stronger economic ties to the North and thus were pro-Union. Not all blacks in Maryland were slaves. The 1860 Federal Census showed there were nearly as many free blacks (83,942) as slaves (87,189) in Maryland, although
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#17328373615203322-665: A sitting U.S. Congressman Henry May (D-Maryland) was imprisoned without charge and without recourse to habeas corpus in Fort Lafayette . May was eventually released and returned to his seat in Congress in December 1861, and in March 1862 he introduced a bill to Congress requiring the federal government to either indict by grand jury or release all other "political prisoners" still held without habeas. The provisions of May's bill were included in
3473-429: A small majority of Radical Republican Unionists then controlling the nominally Democratic state. Maryland, as a slave-holding border state, was deeply divided over the antebellum arguments over states' rights and the future of slavery in the Union. Culturally, geographically and economically, Maryland found herself neither one thing nor another, a unique blend of Southern agrarianism and Northern mercantilism. In
3624-614: A special session in Frederick , a strongly pro-Union town, rather than the state capital of Annapolis . The Maryland General Assembly convened in Frederick and unanimously adopted a measure stating that they would not commit the state to secession, explaining that they had "no constitutional authority to take such action," whatever their own personal feelings might have been. On April 29, the Legislature voted decisively 53–13 against secession, though they also voted not to reopen rail links with
3775-405: A statute enacted by Congress or a constitutional amendment, because Lincoln or a subsequent president could revoke it. One week after issuing the final Proclamation, Lincoln wrote to Major General John McClernand : "After the commencement of hostilities I struggled nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the 'institution'; and when finally I conditionally determined to touch it, I gave
3926-714: A substantial impact on economic and domestic policy , including Bill Clinton 's declaration of federal lands for national monuments and George W. Bush 's declaration of the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina as disaster areas. Proclamations are also used, often contentiously, to grant presidential pardons . Recent notable pardon proclamations are Gerald Ford 's pardon of former President Richard Nixon (1974), Jimmy Carter 's pardon of Vietnam War draft evaders ( Proclamation 4483 , 1977), and George W. Bush 's clemency of Scooter Libby 's prison sentence (2007). Although less significant in terms of public policy , proclamations are also used ceremonially by presidents to honor
4077-450: A two-sided spread that showed the transition from slavery into civilization after President Lincoln signed the Proclamation. Nast believed in equal opportunity and equality for all people, including enslaved Africans or free blacks. A mass rally in Chicago on September 7, 1862, demanded immediate and universal emancipation of slaves. A delegation headed by William W. Patton met the president at
4228-624: A year after the law's passage, the Confederates massacred black U.S. soldiers at Fort Pillow . Confederate President Jefferson Davis reacted to the Emancipation Proclamation with outrage and in an address to the Confederate Congress on January 12 threatened to send any U.S. military officer captured in Confederate territory covered by the proclamation to state authorities to be charged with "exciting servile insurrection", which
4379-496: Is not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless they fight their way at every step. I therefore hope and trust and most earnestly request that no more troops be permitted or ordered by the Government to pass through the city. If they should attempt it, the responsibility for the bloodshed will not rest upon me. Hearing no immediate reply from Washington, on the evening of April 19 Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown ordered
4530-613: Is upheld because they are often specifically authorized by congressional statute, making them "delegated unilateral powers". Their issuances have occasionally led to important political and historical consequences in the development of the United States. George Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793 and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 were some of America's most famous presidential proclamations in that regard. The legal weight of presidential proclamations suggests their importance to presidential governance. Other more recent policy-based proclamations have also made
4681-451: The Dred Scott case that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in U.S. territories. It also rejected the notion of popular sovereignty that had been advanced by Stephen A. Douglas as a solution to the slavery controversy, while completing the effort first legislatively proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1784 to confine slavery within the borders of existing states. On August 6, 1861,
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4832-511: The 1862 elections , the Democrats gained 28 seats in the House as well as the governorship of New York. Lincoln's friend Orville Hickman Browning told the president that the Proclamation and the suspension of habeas corpus had been "disastrous" for his party by handing the Democrats so many weapons. Lincoln made no response. Copperhead William Jarvis of Connecticut pronounced the election the "beginning of
4983-512: The American Civil War (1861–1865), Maryland , a slave state , was one of the border states , straddling the South and North . Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America , Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Governor Thomas H. Hicks , despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding. Because the state bordered
5134-717: The Confiscation Act of 1862 , but he didn't mention any statute in the Final Emancipation Proclamation and, in any event, the source of his authority to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the Final Emancipation Proclamation was his "joint capacity as President and Commander-in-Chief". Lincoln therefore did not have such authority over the four border slave-holding states that were not in rebellion— Missouri , Kentucky , Maryland and Delaware —so those states were not named in
5285-466: The District of Columbia and the opposing factions within the state strongly desired to sway public opinion towards their respective causes, Maryland played an important role in the war. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus from Washington to Philadelphia. Lincoln ignored the ruling of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in "Ex parte Merryman" decision in 1861 concerning freeing John Merryman ,
5436-546: The Dred Scott decision to arrive at an answer, but he finally concluded that they could indeed remain free. Still, a complete end to slavery would require a constitutional amendment. Conflicting advice as to whether to free the slaves was presented to Lincoln in public and private. Thomas Nast , a cartoon artist during the Civil War and the late 1800s considered "Father of the American Cartoon", composed many works, including
5587-734: The First Confiscation Act freed the slaves who were employed "against the Government and lawful authority of the United States." On July 17, 1862, the Second Confiscation Act freed the slaves "within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by forces of the United States." The Second Confiscation Act, unlike the First Confiscation Act, explicitly provided that all slaves covered by it would be permanently freed, stating in section 10 that "all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against
5738-462: The March 1863 Habeas Corpus Act , in which Congress finally authorized Lincoln to suspend habeas corpus, but required actual indictments for suspected traitors. Although Maryland stayed as part of the Union and more Marylanders fought for the Union than for the Confederacy, Marylanders sympathetic to the secession easily crossed the Potomac River into secessionist Virginia in order to join and fight for
5889-458: The Maryland Campaign in 1862. After the April 19 rioting, skirmishes continued in Baltimore for the next month. Mayor George William Brown and Maryland Governor Thomas Hicks implored President Lincoln to reroute troops around Baltimore city and through Annapolis to avoid further confrontations. In a letter to President Lincoln, Mayor Brown wrote: It is my solemn duty to inform you that it
6040-658: The Mississippi Valley , northern Alabama , the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a large part of Arkansas , and the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower Shenandoah Valley and the area around Alexandria were covered. Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers. On
6191-598: The Republican leader in the House , called for total war against the rebellion to include emancipation of slaves, arguing that emancipation, by forcing the loss of enslaved labor, would ruin the rebel economy. On March 13, 1862, Congress approved an Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves , which prohibited "All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States" from returning fugitive slaves to their owners. Pursuant to
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6342-450: The Soldier's Home , Lincoln called his cabinet into session and issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. According to Civil War historian James M. McPherson , Lincoln told cabinet members, "I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves." Lincoln had first shown an early draft of
6493-439: The U.S. Constitution providing that any state that abolished slavery before January 1, 1900, would receive compensation from the United States in the form of interest-bearing U.S. bonds. Adoption of this amendment, in theory, could have ended the war without ever permanently ending slavery, because the amendment provided, "Any State having received bonds ... and afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to
6644-533: The Union Army . The Emancipation Proclamation became a historic document because it "would redefine the Civil War, turning it [for the North] from a struggle [solely] to preserve the Union to one [also] focused on ending slavery, and set a decisive course for how the nation would be reshaped after that historic conflict." The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To ensure the abolition of slavery in all of
6795-479: The Union Navy . Other residents, and a majority of the legislature, wished to remain in the Union, but did not want to be involved in a war against their southern neighbors, and sought to prevent a military response by Lincoln to the South's secession. After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, many citizens began forming local militias, determined to prevent a future slave uprising. The first bloodshed of
6946-537: The White House on September 13. Lincoln had declared in peacetime that he had no constitutional authority to free the slaves. Even used as a war power, emancipation was a risky political act. Public opinion as a whole was against it. There would be strong opposition among Copperhead 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. Lincoln first discussed
7097-408: The border states and Union-occupied areas. Nevertheless, in the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation itself, Lincoln said that he would recommend to Congress that it compensate states that "adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery". In addition, during the hundred days between September 22, 1862, when he issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and January 1, 1863, when he issued
7248-604: The 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on April 8, 1864; the House of Representatives did so on January 31, 1865; and the required three-fourths of the states ratified it on December 6, 1865. The amendment made slavery and involuntary servitude unconstitutional, "except as a punishment for a crime ". The United States Constitution of 1787 did not use the word "slavery" but included several provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise (in Article I, Section 2) allocated congressional representation based "on
7399-414: The 19th April and is known to be so decided a Southerner, that it more than likely he would be thrown into a Fort. He goes about from place to place, sometimes staying in one county, sometimes in another and then passing a few days in the city. He never shows in the day time & is cautious who sees him at any time. Because Maryland's sympathies were divided, many Marylanders would fight one another during
7550-487: The 4 million enslaved people in the country. Around 25,000 to 75,000 were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place. It could not be enforced in the areas still in rebellion, but, as the Union army took control of Confederate regions, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the liberation of more than three and a half million enslaved people in those regions by
7701-580: The Army and Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution. As such, in the Emancipation Proclamation he claimed to have the authority to free persons held as slaves in those states that were in rebellion "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion". In the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln said "attention is hereby called" to two 1862 statutes, namely "An Act to Make an Additional Article of War" and
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#17328373615207852-423: The Civil War occurred in Maryland. Anxious about the risk of secessionists capturing Washington, D.C. , given that the capital was bordered by Virginia, and preparing for war with the South, the federal government requested armed volunteers to suppress "unlawful combinations" in the South. Soldiers from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts were transported by rail to Baltimore , where they had to disembark, march through
8003-618: The Civil war (and one of the most significant) was the Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland , in which Marylanders fought with distinction for both armies. The battle was the culmination of Robert E. Lee 's Maryland Campaign , which aimed to take the war to the North. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia , consisting of about 40,000 men, had entered Maryland following their recent victory at Second Bull Run . While Major General George B. McClellan 's 87,000-man Army of
8154-470: The Confederacy to increase its own numbers. Writing on the matter after the sack of Fredericksburg , Lee wrote, "In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution [and] our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain
8305-817: The Confederacy. During the early summer of 1861, several thousand Marylanders crossed the Potomac to join the Confederate Army . Most of the men enlisted into regiments from Virginia or the Carolinas , but six companies of Marylanders formed at Harpers Ferry into the Maryland Battalion. Among them were members of the former volunteer militia unit, the Maryland Guard Battalion, initially formed in Baltimore in 1859. Maryland Exiles, including Arnold Elzey and brigadier general George H. Steuart , would organize
8456-400: The Confederate banner. Whether this was due to local sympathy with the Union cause or the generally ragged state of the Confederate army, many of whom had no shoes, is not clear. Frederick would later be extorted by Jubal Early , who threatened to burn down the city if its residents did not pay a ransom. Hagerstown too would also suffer a similar fate. One of the bloodiest battles fought in
8607-444: The Confederate states where the proclamation was put into immediate effect by local commanders included Winchester, Virginia , Corinth, Mississippi , the Sea Islands along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, Key West , Florida, and Port Royal, South Carolina . On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward
8758-433: The Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. The proclamation provided that the executive branch, including the Army and Navy, "will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons". Even though it excluded states not in rebellion, as well as parts of Louisiana and Virginia under Union control, it still applied to more than 3.5 million of
8909-475: The Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it was made part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property by Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Slavery was also supported in law and in practice by a pervasive culture of white supremacy . Nonetheless, between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. No Southern state did so, and the slave population of
9060-423: The Final Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln took actions that suggest that he continued to consider the first option he mentioned to Greeley — saving the Union without freeing any slave — a possibility. Historian William W. Freehling wrote, "From mid-October to mid-November 1862, he sent personal envoys to Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas". Each of these envoys carried with him a letter from Lincoln stating that if
9211-429: The North, and they requested that Lincoln remove Union troops from Maryland. At this time the legislature seems to have wanted to avoid involvement in a war against its southern neighbors. On May 13, 1861, General Benjamin F. Butler entered Baltimore by rail with 1,000 Federal soldiers and, under cover of a thunderstorm, quietly took possession of Federal Hill . Butler fortified his position and trained his guns upon
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#17328373615209362-417: The North. This weakened the South's labor force while bolstering the North's ranks. The Proclamation was immediately denounced by Copperhead Democrats , who opposed the war and advocated restoring the union by allowing slavery. Horatio Seymour , while running for governor of New York, cast the Emancipation Proclamation as a call for slaves to commit extreme acts of violence on all white southerners, saying it
9513-664: The Official Records of the War Department credits Maryland with 33,995 white enlistments in volunteer regiments of the United States Army and 8,718 African American enlistments in the United States Colored Troops. A further 3,925 Marylanders, not differentiated by race, served as sailors or marines. One notable Maryland front line regiment was the 2nd Maryland Infantry , which saw considerable combat action in
9664-530: 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 (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including
9815-559: The Potomac was moving to intercept Lee, a Union soldier discovered a mislaid copy of the detailed battle plans of Lee's army, on Sunday 14 September. The order indicated that Lee had divided his army and dispersed portions geographically (to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , and Hagerstown, Maryland ), thus making each subject to isolation and defeat in detail – if McClellan could move quickly enough. However, McClellan waited about 18 hours before deciding to take advantage of this intelligence and position his forces based on it, thus endangering
9966-410: The Proclamation (Jefferson County being the only exception), a condition of the state's admittance to the Union was that its constitution provide for the gradual abolition of slavery (an immediate emancipation of all slaves was also adopted there in early 1865). Slaves in the border states of Maryland and Missouri were also emancipated by separate state action before the Civil War ended. In Maryland,
10117-482: The Proclamation spread rapidly by word of mouth, arousing hopes of freedom, creating general confusion, and encouraging thousands to escape to Union lines. George Washington Albright, a teenage slave in Mississippi , recalled that like many of his fellow slaves, his father escaped to join Union forces. According to Albright, plantation owners tried to keep news of the Proclamation from slaves, but they learned of it through
10268-560: The Proclamation. The fifth border jurisdiction, West Virginia , where slavery remained legal but was in the process of being abolished, was, in January 1863, still part of the legally recognized "reorganized" state of Virginia , based in Alexandria , which was in the Union (as opposed to the Confederate state of Virginia, based in Richmond ). The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in
10419-636: The Reconstruction of the captured Confederate State of Louisiana. Only 10 percent of the state's electorate had to take the loyalty oath. The state was also required to accept the Emancipation Proclamation and abolish slavery in its new constitution. By December 1864, the Lincoln plan abolishing slavery had been enacted not only in Louisiana, but also in Arkansas and Tennessee. In Kentucky, Union Army commanders relied on
10570-522: The Republicans picked up five seats in the Senate." McPherson states, "If the election was in any sense a referendum on emancipation and on Lincoln's conduct of the war, a majority of Northern voters endorsed these policies." The initial Confederate response was outrage. The Proclamation was seen as vindication of the rebellion and proof that Lincoln would have abolished slavery even if the states had remained in
10721-521: The South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million people at the beginning of the Civil War, when most slave states sought to break away from the United States. Lincoln understood that the federal government's power to end slavery in peacetime was limited by the Constitution, which, before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. During the Civil War, however, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation under his authority as " Commander in Chief of
10872-466: The South without hindrance from the state of Maryland, which had also voted to close its rail lines to Northern troops, so as to avoid involvement in a war against its southern neighbors. By May 21 there was no need to send further troops. After the occupation of the city, Union troops were garrisoned throughout the state. By late summer Maryland was firmly in the hands of Union soldiers. Arrests of Confederate sympathizers and those critical of Lincoln and
11023-463: The South, and refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the Union. Later in 1861, Baltimore resident W W Glenn described Steuart as a fugitive from the authorities: I was spending the evening out when a footstep approached my chair from behind and a hand was laid upon me. I turned and saw Dr. R. S. Steuart. He has been concealed for more than six months. His neighbors are so bitter against him that he dare not go home, and he committed himself so decidedly on
11174-540: The Southerners emerged victorious, despite an inferiority both of numbers and equipment. When the prisoners were taken, many men recognized former friends and family. Major William Goldsborough, whose memoir The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army chronicled the story of the rebel Marylanders, wrote of the battle: nearly all recognized old friends and acquaintances, whom they greeted cordially, and divided with them
11325-500: The U.S., Lincoln also insisted that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require them to enact laws abolishing slavery (which occurred during the war in Tennessee , Arkansas , and Louisiana ); Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland , Missouri , and West Virginia ) and pushed for passage of the 13th Amendment . The Senate passed
11476-457: The U.S., contrary to a common misconception; it applied in the ten states that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but it did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slaveholding border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware) or in parts of Virginia and Louisiana that were no longer in rebellion. Those slaves were freed by later separate state and federal actions. The areas covered were " Arkansas , Texas , Louisiana (except
11627-546: The Union IX Corps . Another was the 4th United States Colored Troops, whose Sergeant Major, Christian Fleetwood was awarded the Medal of Honor for rallying the regiment and saving its colors in the successful assault on New Market Heights. Not all those who sympathised with the rebels would abandon their homes and join the Confederacy. Some, like physician Richard Sprigg Steuart , remained in Maryland, offered covert support for
11778-479: The Union Address , but then typically given in writing and not referred to as such). In it he praised the free labor system for respecting human rights over property rights; he endorsed legislation to address the status of contraband slaves and slaves in loyal states, possibly through buying their freedom with federal money; and he endorsed federal funding of voluntary colonization. In January 1862, Thaddeus Stevens ,
11929-401: The Union to ending slavery in addition to preserving the Union. Although the Emancipation Proclamation resulted in the gradual freeing of most slaves, it did not make slavery illegal. Of the states that were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia prohibited slavery before the war ended. In 1863, President Lincoln proposed a moderate plan for
12080-534: The Union two days after issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by suspending habeas corpus . His opponents linked these two actions in their claims that he was becoming a despot. In light of this and a lack of military success for the Union armies, many War Democrat voters who had previously supported Lincoln turned against him and joined the Copperheads in the off-year elections held in October and November. In
12231-434: The Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to 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
12382-417: The Union. It intensified the fear of slaves revolting and undermined morale, especially spurring fear among slave owners who saw it as a threat to their business. In an August 1863 letter to President Lincoln, U.S. Army general Ulysses S. Grant observed that the proclamation's "arming the negro", together with "the emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest [ sic ] blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave
12533-418: The United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon". In his 2014 book, Lincoln's Gamble , journalist and historian Todd Brewster asserted that Lincoln's desire to reassert the saving of the Union as his sole war goal was, in fact, crucial to his claim of legal authority for emancipation. Since slavery was protected by the Constitution, the only way that he could free
12684-416: The United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do ... order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion, against
12835-499: The United States, the following, to wit: Lincoln then listed the ten states still in rebellion, excluding parts of states under Union control, and continued: I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free. ... [S]uch persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States. ... And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by
12986-554: The attacking Confederates cost rebel General Jubal Early his chance to capture the Union capital of Washington, D.C. Across the state, some 50,000 citizens signed up for the military, with most joining the United States Army . Approximately a tenth as many enlisted to "go South" and fight for the Confederacy . Abolition of slavery in Maryland came before the end of the war, with a new third constitution voted approval in 1864 by
13137-399: The battle, though the Union suffered heavier losses than the Confederates and General McClellan allowed the escape of Robert E. Lee 's retreating troops, Union forces turned back a Confederate invasion of Maryland, eliminating more than a quarter of Lee's army in the process. This marked a turning point in the Civil War. On September 22, 1862, five days after Antietam, and while residing at
13288-561: The beginning of a political rise for their members; in Connecticut, H. B. Whiting wrote that the truth was now plain even to "those stupid thickheaded persons who persisted in thinking that the President was a conservative man and that the war was for the restoration of the Union under the Constitution." War Democrats , who rejected the Copperhead position within their party, found themselves in
13439-404: The cause of the Union. This opposition would fight for the Union but not to end slavery, so Lincoln gave them the means and motivation to do both, at the same time. In effect, then, Lincoln may have already chosen the third option he mentioned to Greeley: "freeing some and leaving others alone"; that is, freeing slaves in the states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but leaving enslaved those in
13590-452: The chief destinations of internal immigrants from Maryland as Ohio and Pennsylvania, followed by Virginia and the District of Columbia. A similar situation existed in relation to Marylanders serving in the United States Colored Troops. Indeed, on the whole there appear to have been twice as many black Marylanders serving in the U.S.C.T. as white Marylanders in the Confederate army. Overall,
13741-623: The cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth)." The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, under a recognized Union government, so it was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties then in the process of forming the new state of West Virginia , and seven additional counties and two cities in the Union-controlled Tidewater region of Virginia . Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and 13 named parishes of Louisiana , which were mostly under federal control at
13892-518: The city council, the police commissioner, and the entire Board of Police were arrested and imprisoned at Fort McHenry without charges. One of those arrested was militia captain John Merryman , who was held without trial in defiance of a writ of habeas corpus on May 25, sparking the case of Ex parte Merryman , heard just 2 days later on May 27 and 28. In this case U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, and native Marylander, Roger B. Taney , acting as
14043-441: The city, and board another train to continue their journey south to Washington. As one Massachusetts regiment was transferred between stations on April 19, a mob of Marylanders sympathizing with the South, or objecting to the use of federal troops against the seceding states, attacked the train cars and blocked the route; some began throwing cobblestones and bricks at the troops, assaulting them with "shouts and stones". Panicked by
14194-528: The city, threatening its destruction. Butler then sent a letter to the commander of Fort McHenry : I have taken possession of Baltimore. My troops are on Federal Hill, which I can hold with the aid of my artillery. If I am attacked to-night, please open upon Monument Square with your mortars. Butler went on to occupy Baltimore and declared martial law , ostensibly to prevent secession, although Maryland had voted solidly (53–13) against secession two weeks earlier, but more immediately to allow war to be made on
14345-852: The colored people, conforming substantially to the most approved plans of gradual emancipation; and ... they may be nearly as well off, in this respect, as if the present trouble had not occurred". He concluded by asking McClernand not to "make this letter public". Initially, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed only a small percentage of the slaves, namely those who were behind Union lines in areas not exempted. Most slaves were still behind Confederate lines or in exempted Union-occupied areas. Secretary of State William H. Seward commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Had any slave state ended its secession attempt before January 1, 1863, it could have kept slavery, at least temporarily. The Proclamation freed
14496-407: The conflict. On May 23, 1862, at the Battle of Front Royal , the 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA was thrown into battle with their fellow Marylanders, the Union 1st Regiment Maryland Volunteer Infantry . This is the only time in United States military history that two regiments of the same numerical designation and from the same state have engaged each other in battle. After hours of desperate fighting
14647-477: The control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States". The Emancipation Proclamation played a significant part in the end of slavery in the United States . On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Its third paragraph begins: That on
14798-476: The court order. The court objected that this disruption of its process was unconstitutional, but noted that it was powerless to enforce its prerogatives. The following month in November 1861, Judge Richard Bennett Carmichael , a presiding state circuit court judge in Maryland, was imprisoned without charge for releasing, due to his concern that arrests were arbitrary and civil liberties had been violated, many of
14949-492: The destruction of railroad bridges leading into the city from the North, preventing further incursions by Union soldiers. The destruction was accomplished the next day. One of the men involved in this destruction would be arrested for it in May without recourse to habeas corpus, leading to the ex parte Merryman ruling. For a time it looked as if Maryland was one provocation away from joining the rebels, but Lincoln moved swiftly to defuse
15100-418: The end of Lee's invasion of the North, and it allowed President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, taking effect on January 1, 1863. Lincoln had wished to issue his proclamation earlier, but needed a military victory in order for his proclamation not to become self-defeating. As Lincoln himself stated, five days before the battle: What good would a proclamation from me do.... I don't want to issue
15251-457: The end of the utter downfall of Abolitionism ". Historians James M. McPherson and Allan Nevins state that though the results looked very troubling, they could be seen favorably by Lincoln; his opponents did well only in their historic strongholds and "at the national level their gains in the House were the smallest of any minority party's in an off-year election in nearly a generation. Michigan, California, and Iowa all went Republican.... Moreover,
15402-431: The end of the war . The Emancipation Proclamation outraged white Southerners and their sympathizers, who saw it as the beginning of a race war . It energized abolitionists , and undermined those Europeans who wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy. The Proclamation lifted the spirits of African Americans , both free and enslaved. It encouraged many to escape from slavery and flee toward Union lines, where many joined
15553-469: The enrollment of freed slaves into the United States military. During the war nearly 200,000 black men, most of them ex-slaves, joined the Union Army. Their contributions were significant in winning the war. The Confederacy did not allow slaves in their army as soldiers until the last month before its defeat. Though the counties of Virginia that were soon to form West Virginia were specifically exempted from
15704-494: The federal government's use of Maryland infrastructure to wage war on the South. One month later in October 1861 one John Murphy asked the United States Circuit Court for the District of Columbia to issue a writ of habeas corpus for his son, then in the United States Army, on the grounds that he was underage. When the writ was delivered to General Andrew Porter Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia he had both
15855-785: The final Emancipation Proclamation (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina). Not included were the Union slave states of Maryland , Delaware , Missouri and Kentucky . Also not named was the state of Tennessee , in which a Union-controlled military government had already been set up, based in the capital, Nashville. Specific exemptions were stated for areas also under Union control on January 1, 1863, namely 48 counties that would soon become West Virginia , seven other named counties of Virginia including Berkeley and Hampshire counties, which were soon added to West Virginia, New Orleans and 13 named parishes nearby. Union-occupied areas of
16006-411: The first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation. It stated: I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
16157-557: The first day of the Maryland legislature's new session, fully one third of the members of the Maryland General Assembly were arrested, due to federal concerns that the Assembly "would aid the anticipated rebel invasion and would attempt to take the state out of the Union." Although previous secession votes, in spring 1861, had failed by large margins, there were legitimate concerns that the war-averse Assembly would further impede
16308-407: The forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." However, Lincoln's position continued to be that, although Congress lacked the power to free the slaves in rebel-held states, he, as commander in chief, could do so if he deemed it a proper military measure. By this time, in the summer of 1862, Lincoln had drafted
16459-414: The government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by
16610-406: The grapevine. The young slave became a "runner" for an informal group they called the 4Ls ("Lincoln's Legal Loyal League") bringing news of the proclamation to secret slave meetings at plantations throughout the region. Confederate general Robert E. Lee saw the Emancipation Proclamation as a way for the Union to increase the number of soldiers it could place on the field, making it imperative for
16761-433: The latter were much more dominant in southern counties. However, across the state, sympathies were mixed. Many Marylanders were simply pragmatic, recognizing that the state's long border with the Union state of Pennsylvania would be almost impossible to defend in the event of war. Maryland businessmen feared the likely loss of trade that would be caused by war and the strong possibility of a blockade of Baltimore 's port by
16912-470: The lawyer delivering the writ and the United States Circuit Judge, Marylander William Matthew Merrick , who issued the writ, arrested to prevent them from proceeding in the case United States ex rel. Murphy v. Porter . Merrick's fellow judges took up the case and ordered General Porter to appear before them, but Lincoln's Secretary of State Seward prevented the federal marshal from delivering
17063-601: The leadup to the American Civil War, it became clear that the state was bitterly divided in its sympathies. There was much less appetite for secession than elsewhere in the Southern States ( South Carolina , Mississippi , Florida , Georgia , Alabama , Louisiana , Texas , Virginia , North Carolina , Arkansas , Tennessee ) or in the border Southern states ( Kentucky and Missouri ) of the Upper South, but Maryland
17214-437: The liberty of white men; to test an utopian theory of equality of races which Nature, History and Experience alike condemn as monstrous, it overturns the Constitution and Civil Laws and sets up Military Usurpation in their stead." Racism remained pervasive on both sides of the conflict and many in the North supported the war only as an effort to force the South to stay in the Union. The promises of many Republican politicians that
17365-411: The nation's military history. The Confederate General A. P. Hill described the most terrible slaughter that this war has yet witnessed. The broad surface of the Potomac was blue with floating bodies of our foe. But few escaped to tell the tale. Although tactically inconclusive, the Battle of Antietam is considered a strategic Union victory and an important turning point of the war, because it forced
17516-490: The number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation." This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of eastern North Carolina ,
17667-594: The offer of the Virginians to join a Virginia Regiment, insisting that Maryland should be represented independently in the Confederate army. It was agreed that Arnold Elzey , a seasoned career officer from Maryland, would command the 1st Maryland Regiment. His executive officer was the Marylander George H. Steuart , who would later be known as "Maryland Steuart" to distinguish him from his more famous cavalry colleague J.E.B. Stuart . The 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment
17818-551: The other hand, Robert Gould Shaw wrote to his mother on September 25, 1862, "So the 'Proclamation of Emancipation' has come at last, or rather, its forerunner. I suppose you all are very much excited about it. For my part, I can't see what practical good it can do now. Wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and the Proclamation will not free them where we don't go." Ten days later, he wrote her again, "Don't imagine, from what I said in my last that I thought Mr. Lincoln's 'Emancipation Proclamation' not right ... but still, as
17969-444: The people of their state desired "to avoid the unsatisfactory" terms of the Final Emancipation Proclamation "and to have peace again upon the old terms" ( i.e. , with slavery intact), they should rally "the largest number of the people possible" to vote in "elections of members to the Congress of the United States ... friendly to their object". Later, in his Annual Message to Congress of December 1, 1862, Lincoln proposed an amendment to
18120-485: The plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... [S]ome man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this
18271-422: The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued on September 22, 1862. It declared that, on January 1, 1863, he would free the slaves in states still in rebellion. Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves. In the summer of 1862, Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential New-York Tribune wrote a famous editorial entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" demanding
18422-425: The proclamation "reads not like an entrepreneur's bill for past services but like a warrior's brandishing of a new weapon". The Emancipation Proclamation resulted in the emancipation of a substantial percentage of the slaves in the Confederate states as the Union armies advanced through the South and slaves escaped to Union lines, or slave owners fled, leaving slaves behind. The Emancipation Proclamation also committed
18573-419: The proclamation after a major Union victory, or else it would appear as if the Union was giving "its last shriek of retreat". Walter Stahr, however, writes, "There are contemporary sources, however, that suggest others were involved in the decision to delay", and Stahr quotes them. In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In
18724-408: The proclamation to Vice President Hannibal Hamlin , an ardent abolitionist, who was more often kept in the dark on presidential decisions. The final proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. Although implicitly granted authority by Congress, Lincoln used his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to issue the proclamation "as a necessary war measure." Therefore, it was not the equivalent of
18875-742: The proclamation with his cabinet in July 1862. He drafted his preliminary proclamation and read it to Secretary of State William Seward and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles , on July 13. Seward and Welles were at first speechless, then Seward referred to possible anarchy throughout the South and resulting foreign intervention; Welles apparently said nothing. On July 22, Lincoln presented it to his entire cabinet as something he had determined to do and he asked their opinion on wording. Although Secretary of War Edwin Stanton supported it, Seward advised Lincoln to issue
19026-589: The proclamation's offer of freedom to slaves who enrolled in the Army and provided freedom for an enrollee's entire family; for this and other reasons, the number of slaves in the state fell by more than 70 percent during the war. However, in Delaware and Kentucky, slavery continued to be legal until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required individuals to return runaway slaves to their owners. During
19177-435: The range of 3,500 (Livermore) to just under 4,700 (McKim), which latter number should be further reduced given that the 2nd Maryland Infantry raised in 1862 consisted largely of the same men who had served in the 1st Maryland, which mustered out after a year. While other men born in Maryland may have served in other Confederate formations, the same is true of units in the service of the United States. The 1860 Census reported
19328-402: The ranks of our armies, until God in his mercy shall bless us with the establishment of our independence." The Emancipation Proclamation marked a significant turning point in the war as it made the goal of the North not only preserving the Union, but also freeing the slaves. The Proclamation also rallied support from abolitionists and Europeans, while encouraging enslaved individuals to escape to
19479-405: The rations which had just changed hands. Among the prisoners captured by William Goldsborough was his own brother Charles Goldsborough. On 6 September 1862 advancing Confederate soldiers entered Frederick, Maryland , the home of Colonel Bradley T. Johnson , who issued a proclamation calling upon his fellow Marylanders to join his colors. Disappointingly for the exiles, recruits did not flock to
19630-467: The route through Baltimore would resume once sufficient troops were available to secure Baltimore. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America , Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. However, a number of leading citizens, including physician and slaveholder Richard Sprigg Steuart , placed considerable pressure on Governor Hicks to summon the state Legislature to vote on secession, following Hicks to Annapolis with
19781-412: The situation, promising that the troops were needed purely to defend Washington, not to attack the South. President Lincoln also complied with the request to reroute troops to Annapolis, as the political situation in Baltimore remained highly volatile. Meanwhile, General Winfield Scott, who was in charge of military operations in Maryland indicated in correspondence with the head of Pennsylvania troops that
19932-439: The situation, several soldiers fired into the mob, whether "accidentally", "in a desultory manner", or "by the command of the officers" is unclear. Chaos ensued as a giant brawl began between fleeing soldiers, the violent mob, and the Baltimore police who tried to suppress the violence. Four soldiers and twelve civilians were killed in the riot. The disorder inspired James Ryder Randall , a Marylander living in Louisiana, to write
20083-612: The slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.... I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer wrote about Lincoln's letter: "Unknown to Greeley, Lincoln composed this after he had already drafted
20234-411: The slaves only in areas of the South that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. But as the Union army advanced into the South, slaves fled to behind its lines, and "[s]hortly after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln administration lifted the ban on enticing slaves into Union lines." These events contributed to the destruction of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for
20385-407: The slaves was as a tactic of war—not as the mission itself. But that carried the risk that when the war ended, so would the justification for freeing the slaves. Late in 1862, Lincoln asked his Attorney General, Edward Bates , for an opinion as to whether slaves freed through a war-related proclamation of emancipation could be re-enslaved once the war was over. Bates had to work through the language of
20536-403: The southern sympathizers seized in his jurisdiction. The order came again from Lincoln's Secretary of State Seward. The federal troops executing Judge Carmichael's arrest beat him unconscious in his courthouse while his court was in session, before dragging him out, initiating a public controversy. In another controversial arrest that fall, and in further defiance of Chief Justice Taney's ruling,
20687-653: The stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation. It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave; historian Lerone Bennett Jr. alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves. However, as a result of the Proclamation, most slaves became free during the course of the war, beginning on the day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina , and Port Royal, South Carolina record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. "Estimates of
20838-465: The time of the Emancipation Proclamation. These exemptions left unemancipated an additional 300,000 slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation has been ridiculed, notably by Richard Hofstadter , who wrote that it "had all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading " and "declared free all slaves ... precisely where its effect could not reach". Disagreeing with Hofstadter, William W. Freehling wrote that Lincoln's asserting his power as Commander-in-Chief to issue
20989-483: The war soon followed, and Steuart's brother, the militia general George H. Steuart , fled to Charlottesville, Virginia , after which much of his family's property was confiscated by the Federal Government. Civil authority in Baltimore was swiftly withdrawn from all those who had not been steadfastly in favor of the Federal Government's emergency measures. During this period in spring 1861, Baltimore Mayor Brown,
21140-478: The war was to restore the Union and not about black rights or ending slavery were declared lies by their opponents, who cited the Proclamation. In Columbiana, Ohio, Copperhead David Allen told a crowd, "Now fellow Democrats I ask you if you are going to be forced into a war against your Britheren of the Southern States for the Negro. I answer No!" The Copperheads saw the Proclamation as irrefutable proof of their position and
21291-556: The war, in May 1861, Union general Benjamin Butler declared that three slaves who escaped to Union lines were contraband of war , and accordingly he refused to return them, saying to a man who sought their return, "I am under no constitutional obligations to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be". On May 30, after a cabinet meeting called by President Lincoln, "Simon Cameron, the secretary of war, telegraphed Butler to inform him that his contraband policy 'is approved.'" This decision
21442-699: The whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons". Under the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2), "No person held to Service or Labour in one State" would become legally free by escaping to another. Article I, Section 9 allowed Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the "Importation of Persons", but not until 1808. However, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment —which states that, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—slaves were understood to be property. Although abolitionists used
21593-451: Was "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilized Europe". The Copperheads also saw the Proclamation as an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power. Editor Henry A. Reeves wrote in Greenport's Republican Watchman that "In the name of freedom for Negroes, [the proclamation] imperils
21744-490: Was a capital offense. Presidential proclamation In the United States, a presidential proclamation is a statement issued by the president of the United States on an issue of public policy . It is a type of presidential directive . A presidential proclamation is an instrument that: Proclamations issued by the president fall into two broad categories: Unless authorized by the United States Congress ,
21895-484: Was controversial because it could have been taken to imply recognition of the Confederacy as a separate, independent sovereign state under international law, a notion that Lincoln steadfastly denied. In addition, as contraband, these people were legally designated as "property" when they crossed Union lines and their ultimate status was uncertain. In December 1861, Lincoln sent his first annual message to Congress (the State of
22046-416: Was equally unsympathetic towards the potentially abolitionist position of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln . In the presidential election of 1860 Lincoln won just 2,294 votes out of a total of 92,421, only 2.5% of the votes cast, coming in at a distant fourth place with Southern Democrat (and later Confederate general) John C. Breckinridge winning the state. In seven counties, Lincoln received not
22197-517: Was imprisoned in Fort McHenry , the same fort where the Star Spangled Banner had been waving "o'er the land of the free" in his grandfather's song. Two of the publishers selling his book were then arrested. In all nine newspapers were shut down in Maryland by the federal government, and a dozen newspaper owners and editors like Howard were imprisoned without charges. On September 17, 1861,
22348-596: Was officially formed on June 16, 1861, and, on June 25, two additional companies joined the regiment in Winchester. Its initial term of duty was for twelve months. It has been estimated that, of the state's 1860 population of 687,000, about 4,000 Marylanders traveled south to fight for the Confederacy. While the number of Marylanders in Confederate service is often reported as 20–25,000 based on an oral statement of General Cooper to General Trimble, other contemporary reports refute this number and offer more detailed estimates in
22499-527: Was rather limited, as the president simply ignored the ruling. Indeed, when Lincoln's dismissal of Chief Justice Taney's ruling was criticized in a September 1861 editorial by Baltimore newspaper editor Frank Key Howard ( Francis Scott Key 's grandson), Howard was himself arrested by order of Lincoln's Secretary of State Seward and held without trial. Howard described these events in his 1863 book Fourteen Months in American Bastiles , where he noted that he
22650-410: Was set up for the former slaves, including schools and training. Naval officers read the proclamation and told them they were free. Slaves had been part of the "engine of war" for the Confederacy. They produced and prepared food; sewed uniforms; repaired railways; worked on farms and in factories, shipping yards, and mines; built fortifications; and served as hospital workers and common laborers. News of
22801-551: Was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see. Runaway slaves who had escaped to Union lines had previously been held by the Union Army as "contraband of war" under the Confiscation Acts . The Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia had been occupied by the Union Navy earlier in the war. The whites had fled to the mainland while the blacks stayed. An early program of Reconstruction
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