The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union's available manpower. It was an important step towards abolishing slavery and conferring American citizenship upon ex-slaves, although the Proclamation did not actually outlaw slavery or free the slaves in the Union states that still permitted it. The Proclamation broadened the goals of the Union war effort; it made the eradication of slavery into an explicit Union goal, in addition to the reuniting of the country.
The Proclamation also prevented European forces from intervening in the war on behalf of the Confederacy. Because the Emancipation Proclamation made the abolition of slavery into a Union goal, it linked support for the Confederacy to support for slavery. As Lincoln hoped, the Proclamation swung foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union by gaining the support of European countries that had already outlawed slaver. It effectively ended the Confederacy's hopes of gaining official recognition from European heads of state.
This lesson demonstrates the importance of the immediate effects that the Emancipation Proclamation had on four major American groups: the Confederate states, the Union states, the Union Army, and black Americans.
Topics
Abolition
Civil War
Politics
Slavery
Big Ideas
US History
Essential Questions
How has social disagreement and collaboration been beneficial to American society?
What document or artifact best summarizes the United States and why?
Concepts
Textual evidence, material artifacts, the built environment, and historic sites are central to understanding United States history.
Conflict and cooperation among social groups, organizations, and nation-states are critical to comprehending society in the United States. Domestic instability, ethnic and racial relations, labor relations, immigration, and wars and revolutions are examples of social disagreement and collaboration.
Competencies
Analyze a primary source for accuracy and bias and connect it to a time and place in United States history.
Summarize how conflict and compromise in United States history impact contemporary society.
Background Material for Teacher
The Emancipation Proclamation at 150. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 137 (1).
Franklin, J.H. (1963). The Emancipation Proclamation. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
Guelzo, A.C. (2004). The Great Event of the Nineteenth Century : Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Treasures of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Legacies 4 (2), 20-23.
Holzer, H., Medford, E.G., & Williams, F.J. (2006). The Emancipation Proclamation : three views (social, political, iconographic). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
End of Unit Assessment
Students will perform an oral presentation of their assigned group's perspective to the rest of the class. Students will then use the historical arguments of all four groups to write a 1-2 page response, comparing and contrasting the effect that the Emancipation Proclamation had on each group.
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