Emancipation Proclamation Dbq

In 1863, President Lincoln had the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” However, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation it was more of a freedom for a slave where slavery was free emotionally but not physically. Many slaves knew they were free but their owner convinced them to continue working out of loyalty and because they had nowhere to go. Some slaves didn’t believe they were free and they believed that if they left their owner that their safety wasn’t guaranteed. The proclamation didn’t free all slaves but it was one

In his 1854 political speeches he frequently misquoted the Declaration of Independence, affirming that all men are created “free and equal.”) Though Lincoln was born in the slave state of Kentucky, grew up among Southerners in southern Indiana, and then married the daughter of a wealthy Kentucky slaveholding planter, he never wavered in his conviction that slavery was a great moral and political evil. He publicly attacked the institution as early as 1837, at age twenty-eight. In his addresses of 1854 he condemned “the monstrous injustice of slavery” and asserted that “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. A private letter of 1864 Lincoln declared: “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think, and feel.”

The amendment was first introduced in April 1864 by an active abolitionist petition campaign passed the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery in the United States to the senate but failed. (Lodge). The house of representatives voted 93 to 65. Only four democrats voted in favor of ending slavery, it was mostly a republican party effort. The disapproval from Democrats in the House of Representatives prevented the amendment from receiving the required two-thirds majority. The second time around which was in January 1865 it finally succeeds and was passed by a vote off 119-56 and was sent to the states for ratification ( Sutherland).The amendment was thought to finally free the African American and be treated equal to as white. The 13th amendment was one of the most influential amendments to have ever been passed in the United State. Ending slavery was the start in a new way of living, slavery had been part of united states. The Southern States were forced to free their slaves and to find a new means of supporting themselves and working their cash crops. Even though is was passed on January the amendment finally was approved in December of 1865 with a two-thirds vote in Congress and went into effect fully when three-fourths of the states ratified it on December.(freedomnatinal). It was very easy to see how this could be a result of the Civil War, which was fought over slavery and the separation of the union