The Purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln

On January 1st, 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation officially took effect but the ideals of the Proclamation had been create by President Lincoln many months before. The reason why President Lincoln first proposed the idea of the Emancipation Proclamation was because it helped to weaken the Confederacy. President Lincoln thought that if he freed the slaves in the South, then the Confederacy could no longer use them as an advantage to make the army stronger. He knew that if he freed the slaves then he had to protect them under the law and that would be a challenge.

The Proclamation allowed African-Americans to join the Union’s army and by the end of the war about 200,000 would serve in the war. The Emancipation proclamation had an immediate effect on the civil war. Since the reason for war was about slavery, then another aim of the outcome of the war was to end slavery. Initially the Proclamation applied just to the states in rebellion, but it helped to create the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865, which officially abolished slavery in the United States.

Since the institution of slavery was protected by the constitution, President Lincoln knew that the only way to end slavery was to wage war on the people who supported it and end their major use of slaves in the war. He knew that if he freed the slaves, then the Union would have a greater chance in winning the war. The Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision made every African American legally categorized as property and President Lincoln wanted to make sure it wasn’t valid anymore.

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Even though Lincoln wasn’t an extreme abolitionist he still knew what he had to do in order to save the ideals of this country and that surprised everyone. He opposed the war with Mexico because its supporters hoped with new territory that will be acquired then there would be another chance to expand slavery. When Congress struck down the Missouri Compromise in 1854, Lincoln said that the settlers in the new western territories could now vote to import slave labor. This all had to be put to an end and the solution was to create the

Emancipation Proclamation so that the United States could be one country again and eventually fulfill the goal of abolishing slavery.

After the Emancipation Proclamation was in effect there were many different steps that needed to take place in order for it to be granting the things it promised. The U.S. Congress created a series of Constitutional amendments that would end slavery, granting citizenship, and giving black men voting rights. As soon as the war ended, many whites organized to oppose black freedom. Using terrorism and the courts, they forced African Americans away from voting booths and other public places.

By the 1890s, southern states passed laws legally segregating black and white Americans. States excluded black voters by making harder literacy tests, creating poll taxes, impossible registration systems, and whites-only Democratic Parties. There continued to be fighting against free Blacks but many African Americans gathered together to remember the struggle through the Jim Crow days and they tried to fight legally to make sure they received what they were promised.

All of the things that came with more struggle with all the segregation and leaders like MLK that will try and push for truly equal rights for all African Americans. If it wasn’t for the war then the Emancipation Proclamation wouldn’t have been created and the United States wouldn’t have been put back together. After the war many people thought that the Emancipation Proclamation would not be in effect and they were very wrong. State after State started to abolish slavery (the states that didn’t apply to the Emancipation Proclamation) and this was a step in history.