The Impact of the Emancipation Proclamation

I was surprised to hear during a family history discussion that my daughters, students at a small county school in Upstate New York, have been taught by their history teachers that the Emancipation Proclamation “didn’t do anything”, or to put it more professionally than their ignorant instructors, was of little historical impact. This short article seeks to put that myth to rest. I will not delve into a graduate-level analysis of the impact of Lincoln’s executive action, although countless historians have done so; but merely address it from a secondary-school level of analysis.

In 1860 there were 3,952,838 enslaved people living in the United States of America, according to census data. Of these, 3.5 million lived in states that would join the Confederacy. Taking these numbers together, 88.5% of slaves lived in “states in rebellion” and thus were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. I would like to emphasize that it took me less than five minutes to find these statistics from reliable online sources, and 14.61 seconds to calculate a percentage from them – a complex mathematical trick that even a high school history teacher can perform.

American abolitionists and British newspapers at the time indeed criticized the Emancipation for not going far enough, but “such remarks missed the point and misunderstood the president’s prerogatives under the Constitution. Lincoln acted under his war powers to seize enemy resources; he had no constitutional power to act against slavery in areas loyal to the United States.”[1] It is also true that professional academics like Lerone Bennett have echoed these claims, but they are no less ignorant than their predecessors in this regard.

The Emancipation Proclamation had a hugely positive effect on the Northern war effort. News of the decree caused many slaves in the south to leave their masters, many of whom joined the Union Army. By the end of the war, more than 200,000 freed blacks were enlisted in the U.S. Army, some of them into units like the 54^th Massachusetts Infantry, which is featured in the Hollywood Blockbuster “Glory”. The Southern economy was crippled by the loss of slaves, who had previously been crucial to producing crops and transporting resupply to the Confederate Army. No serious historian doubts that the Proclamation had an impact on the war.

Aside from the war impact, the Proclamation had a profound effect on the individual. It has been called “one of the most radical emancipations in the history of the modern world”– at no other point in the history of the entire world have more slaves been freed in a single instance. The British Emancipation of 1833 freed some 800,000 slaves, a fraction of the 3.5 million freed by Lincoln in 1863. How can any serious scholar downplay such a profound moment?

After the fall of the Confederate capitol of Richmond in April 1865, Lincoln entered the city.

Lincoln’s visit to Richmond produced the most unforgettable scenes of this unforgettable war. With an escort of only ten sailors, the president walked the streets while [Admiral David D.] Porter peered nervously at every window for would-be assassins. But the Emancipator was soon surrounded by an impenetrable cordon of black people shouting “Glory to God! Glory! Glory! Glory!” “Bless the Lord! The great Messiah! I knowed him as soon as I seed him. He's been in my heart four long years. Come to free his children from bondage. Glory, Hallelujah.” Several freed slaves touched Lincoln to make sure he was real. “I know I am free,” shouted an old woman, “for I have seen Father Abraham and felt him.” Overwhelmed by rare emotions, Lincoln said to one black man who fell on his knees in front of him: “Don't kneel to me. That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter.”[2] Among the reporters from northern newspapers who described these events was one whose presence was a potent symbol of the revolution. He was T. Morris Chester, who sat at a desk in the Confederate Capitol drafting his dispatch to the Philadelphia Press. “Richmond has never before presented such a spectacle of jubilee,” he wrote. “What a wonderful change has come over the spirit of Southern dreams.” Chester was a black man.[3]

How presumptuous of armchair historians and ignorant high school teachers to declare that the Emancipation Proclamation had no impact on these crowds of black people. Will they also tell the kneeling man and this old woman that the Proclamation “didn’t do anything”? Elitist academics who have not done a noteworthy thing in their life have the gall to write in earnest that freeing 3.5 million slaves is of little impact! And small-town teachers of history take them seriously!

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[1] James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 558.

[2] Burke Davis To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865 (New York, 1959), 184; as quoted in James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 846-847.

[3] Philadelphia Press, April 11, 12, 1865; as quoted in James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 846-847.