Summary Of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

On September 2nd, 1862, Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation. After that, there’s been much debate on whether Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation truly played a role in freeing the slaves with many arguments opposing or favoring this issue. In Vincent Harding’s essay, The Blood-red Ironies of God, Harding argues in his thesis that Lincoln did not help to emancipate the slaves but that rather the slaves “self-emancipated” themselves through the war. On the opposition, Allen C Guelzo’s essay, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, argues in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and Guelzo acknowledges Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation. Guelzo proposes in his essay that Lincoln intended on abolishing slavery and completed this by signing the Emancipation Proclamation, crediting the Emancipation Proclamation as the most revolutionary pronouncement ever signed by an American president. He supports his thesis by compiling different evidence and

In my opinion, Guezlo’s essay was stronger purely because he answered so many questions from the opposition. He used facts and kept out a bias tone in his essay and I feel that Harding’s essay lacked many facts and citations that could’ve made his argument stronger. From the beginning of Guezlo’s essay to the end, he makes his points clear and uses rational thinking to support his thesis, whereas Harding could have touched on subjects more, and used too much emotional bias to make his case.
In conclusion, I would argue that Guezlo’s essay was stronger and he did a better job supporting his thesis. His writing was very tactful because of his use of facts and citations. However, I do agree with Harding that the black movement’s efforts helped to demolish slavery. But I think that without Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, it couldn’t have been