Editing Emancipation Proclamation (section)

==Drafting and issuance of the proclamation==
{{Wikisource|The Emancipation Proclamation}}
[[File:Eastman Johnson - A Ride for Liberty -- The Fugitive Slaves - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|[[Eastman Johnson]] (American, 1824–1906) – ''[[A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves]]'', {{Circa|1862}}]]
Lincoln first discussed 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.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/almintr.html | title=Emancipation Proclamation | work=Lincoln Papers | publisher=Library of Congress and Knox College | year=2002 | access-date=June 28, 2013}}</ref> Although Secretary of War Edwin Stanton supported it, Seward advised Lincoln to issue the proclamation after a major Union victory, or else it would appear as if the Union was giving "its last shriek of retreat".<ref>{{cite book|last=Goodwin|first=Doris Kearns|author-link=Doris Kearns Goodwin|title=Team of Rivals|title-link=Team of Rivals|year=2005|publisher=Blithedale Productions|location=New York}}</ref> Walter Stahr, however, writes, "There are contemporary sources, however, that suggest others were involved in the decision to delay", and Stahr quotes them.<ref>Stahr, Walter, ''Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary'', New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017, p. 226.</ref>

In September 1862, the [[Battle of Antietam]] gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In 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.

[[File:Emancipation Proclamation - LOC 04067 - restoration1.jpg|thumb|upright|1864 reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division|left]]

On September 22, 1862, five days after Antietam, and while residing at the [[President Lincoln's Cottage|Soldier's Home]], Lincoln called his cabinet into session and issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals_iv/sections/preliminary_emancipation_proclamation.html#|title=Preliminary Emacipation Proclamation, 1862|website=www.archives.gov}}</ref> 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."<ref>McPherson, James M. ''Battle Cry of Freedom'', (1988), p. 557.</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FTsl3N7hDpAC&q=six+months+at+the+white+house+carpenter |first=Frank B. |last=Carpenter |author-link=Francis Bicknell Carpenter |title=Six Months at the White House |year=1866 |page=90 |publisher=Applewood Books |access-date=February 20, 2010 |isbn=978-1-4290-1527-1}} as reported by Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Portland Chase, September 22, 1862. Others present used the word ''resolution'' instead of ''vow to God''.<br />
[[Gideon Welles]], ''Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson'' (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 1:143, reported that Lincoln made a covenant with God that if God would change the tide of the war, Lincoln would change his policy toward slavery. See also Nicolas Parrillo, "Lincoln's Calvinist Transformation: Emancipation and War", ''Civil War History'' (September 1, 2000).</ref> Lincoln had first shown an early draft of the proclamation to Vice President [[Hannibal Hamlin]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bangorinfo.com/Focus/focus_hannibal_hamlin.html |title=Bangor in Focus: Hannibal Hamlin |publisher=Bangorinfo.com |date= n.d.|access-date=May 29, 2011}}</ref> an ardent abolitionist, who was more often kept in the dark on presidential decisions. Lincoln issued the final proclamation, as he had promised in the preliminary proclamation, 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 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 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 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".<ref> [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln6/1:84.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext;q1=broken+eggs "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln]" edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume 6, pp. 48–49.</ref><ref>Cohen, Henry, [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61e83d709f319913599d9eff/t/65654294056d981e17a815ec/1701135003723/2023+%2354+LF+Fall+Bulletin++%E2%80%93+WEB.pdf "Was Lincoln Disingenuous in His Greeley Letter?"], ''The Lincoln Forum Bulletin'', Issue 54, Fall 2023, p. 9.</ref>
[[File:Men of Color Civil War Recruitment Broadside 1863.png|thumb|upright|A [[Broadside (printing)|printed broadside]] recruiting men of color to enlist in the U.S. military after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 ([[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]]).]]
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 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."<ref>[[James Oakes (historian)|Oakes, James]], ''Freedom National'', p. 367.</ref> These events contributed to the destruction of slavery.

The Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war/ |title=Teaching With Documents: The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War|work=[[National Archives and Records Administration|U.S. National Archives and Records Administration]]|date=August 15, 2016}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/csenlist.htm|title=Confederate Law Authorizing the Enlistment of Black Soldiers, as Promulgated in a Military Order|date=March 23, 1865|work=CSA General Orders, No. 14|publisher=Department of History, University of Maryland|access-date=April 13, 2012|archive-date=March 12, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120312213532/http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/csenlist.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Though the counties of Virginia that were soon to form [[West Virginia]] were specifically exempted from 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, 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Convention_of_1864|title=Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1864)|website=encyclopediavirginia.org|access-date=October 11, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/april-1864-civil-war.htm|title=American Civil War April 1864 – History Learning Site|newspaper=History Learning Site|access-date=October 11, 2016}}</ref> In early 1865, Tennessee adopted an amendment to its constitution prohibiting slavery.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/chronol.htm |title=Freedmen and Southern Society Project: Chronology of Emancipation |publisher=History.umd.edu |date=December 8, 2009 |access-date=May 29, 2011 |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011224131/http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/chronol.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/timelines/timeline_1861-1865.htm |title=TSLA: This Honorable Body: African American Legislators in 19th Century Tennessee |publisher=State.tn.us |date= n.d.|access-date=May 29, 2011}}</ref>