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Emancipation Proclamation Dbq

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From the beginning of his administration, Abraham Lincoln got a lot of pressure from those who supported the abolition of slavery and radical Republicans to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. At that time, Abraham Lincoln was debating upon linking abolition to the war. On July 17th, 1862, the Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act that gave freedom to the salves, who were owned by the supporters of the Confederacy. Thus, it was the signal that Lincoln waited to issue the declaration (Woog, 2009, p. 40).
Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves in those states that were in rebellion. It also gave the right to the freed slaves to join the Union Army and fight against those …show more content…

The first draft of the declaration, consisting of 325 words was drafted on 20th July in 1862. Abraham Lincoln was heavily criticized; he was also under a lot of pressure from those who opposed the idea of freeing such a class of people as slaves. All of the people who opposed this idea benefited from slavery. Being a highly-moral figure, Lincoln’s personal principals were built on a belief that all people of the nation deserved to have equal rights. The pressure of the abovementioned opposition was influencing Lincoln, this is illustrated by him being very nervous when he was signing the Emancipation Proclamation on the January 1, 1863. “If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act…and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say, ‘He …show more content…

The president had a conviction that the whites and blacks had equal rights to remain in the United States. The nation had to exercise unity without a single state seceding from the Union. The president once said that "our minds are made up to live in this country if we can, and die here if we must" (Ford, 2013, p. 12). So the blacks felt that it was crucial to get their freedom, while the whites had a different opinion. During the summer of 1862, the media portrayed President Lincoln in a negative way. In the cartoons, the head of state was presented with his long hair as horns. In other circumstances, he was seen as the high roller with devilish

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