“The Proclamation is the drawing of a sword that can never be sheathed again.”
This is the story of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Anti-slavery, moderate-Republican President Abraham Lincoln has never liked slavery. He wants to prevent it from expanding to new US territories. But he also never intended to go on the offensive against the “peculiar institution” within those states where it already exists. The Illinois Rail-Splitter knows the law; he’s aware that the constitution protects slavery at the state level.
Then the Civil War came. As the South breaks away from the Union, the North breaks philosphically on slavery. The abolitionists say ending slavery must be a war aim. The Democrats and border-states say this war is only about preserving the Union. Moderate Republicans and still others are mixed. Meanwhile, enslaved Americans within the Confederacy are seeking refuge in Federal army camps. How should Union Generals respond? Can they give sanctuary without upsetting the border-states that may still join the Confederacy? And do seceded states still have constitutional rights? Or does war mean the president can use his constitutional war powers to end slavery among rebelling states by proclamation? And if he does … what will that outcome be?
The questions are boundless. The answers are unknowable without taking the plunge. Your move, President Lincoln.
161: An Epilogue Toast to Prohibition’s End with Author Daniel Okrent
Introducing: American Criminal from Airship
160: Al Capone & the End of Prohibition
159: Scofflaws, Moonshiners, Bootleggers, and Crime Lords
158: Prohibition - So You Wanna Be a Rum Runner?
157: Temperance, Prohibition, and the Path to the 18th Amendment
156: The Presidency of “Silent” Cal Coolidge
155: The Life & Times of Warren G. Harding & The Teapot Dome Scandal
154: An Epilogue Discussion with Ben Sawyer
153: West Virginia’s Mine Wars: From Trouble in Matewan to the Battle of Blair Mountain
152: The Second Ku Klux Klan: Racism, Anti-Semitism, & Anti-Catholicism in the 1920s
151: The First Red Scare - Bombings, The Palmer Raids, Eugene Debs, and J. Edgar Hoover
150: The Great War’s Aftermath: Coming Home, The Spanish Flu, & The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
149: WWI Epilogue
148: Tales of Christmas from World War I (A Truce, Plum Pudding, and Love)
147: Peacemaking in Paris: The Treaty of Versailles
146: The Armistice of November 11, 1918
145: Halloween Special 2023: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
144: A Conversation with Ken Burns - Storytelling and the American Buffalo
143: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive (pt.2) – Breaking the Kriemhilde Line
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