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Jarues
M. McPbenon
TF}VE WERE TO C,O OUT
I
any town in Americe and as
I the dde of this arcicle, prob
spondents
would unhesiutingly answer, "Abraham Lin-
coln." Most of them *'ould cite the Emanciparion Procl'.r-
mation as thc key documenL Some of the more reflecdve
and becer informed respondens would
add the Thirteenth Amendment and
point to Lincoln's important role in is
adoption. fuid a few might qualifi their
.Eswer by noting that without military
victory the Emancipadon Proclamadon
rrould never have been adopted, or at
least would not have applied to rhe sates
where most of the slaves were held. But,
of course, Lincoln lvas commander-in-
chief of Union arnries, so the credit for
their victories rvould belong mainly to
him- The answer would still be the
same: Lincoln freed rhe slaves.
In recenr vears, drough, this answer
has been challenged as another example
of elitist history, of focusing only on the
acrions of great rvhite males and ignor-
ing the accions of the overwhelming
majority of the people, who also make
history. If rve were to ask our quesrion
of professionrl historians, rve would re-
ceive a reply quite differenr from thar
described above. For one thing, it
would not be simple-br clear cr.rt Many
The uaditional answer to
the question "Who
freed
the slaves?" is the right
answer. By prbnouncing
slavery a moral evil that
must come to an end, by
rvinning che Presidency in
1860, by refusing to
compromise on the issue of
slavery's e,Ypansioil, by
knining together a [Inionist
coalition. by prosecuting
the Civil lVar to
unconditional victory as
Commander-in-Chief of an
army of liberrtion, Abraham
Lincoln freed rhe shves.
of them would answer along the lines of 'On the bne
hand...but on the other." They would speak of ambiva-
lence, ambiguiry, nuances, paradox, irony. They would
point to Lincoln's gradualism, his slow and apparendy re-
white supremary. They
would
say that rhe rvhole issue is more complex than it ap-
pears-in
other words, many hisrorians, as is their wont,
would
not give a srraight ans\ver ro the question.
But of rhose who did" a growing number would reply, as
did en historian spcaking to rhe Civil War lrsrinrte at Ger-
Who Freed The Slaves?
itary canrps in the South thev forced the issue of emancipa-
tion on r}re Lincoln adrninistration..By creating a simation
in_:uh ich_ng.4hgrn o tficials rvou ld e i thG-Ei?E-I6JEEFn
them to
resolutely to
place rheir freerlom-:rnd that of their posterity-<n the
rvrrdme agenda." Union officers, then
Congress, and finally Lincoln decided to
confiscate this human properry belong-
ing to the enemy and put it to work for
the Union in the form of seniants, team-
sters, laborers, and eventually soldiers in
northern armies. Wtighed in the scale of
rhe Civil !Var, these 190,000 black sol-
diers and sailors (and probablv a larger
nurnber of black arml' Iaborers) tipped
the belrnce in favor of Union vicrory.
Even deep in the Confederate interior
remote from the fighting fronts, with the
deperture of masters and overseers to the
annl', 'learing lvomen and old men in
chirrge, the balance of porver gradually
shifted in favor of slaves, undermining
slavery on farms and plantations far from
the line of brnle.'
The foremost exponent of the black
selt--emanciparion therne is the histori:rn
and thcologirn \'incent H,rrtling u'hose
book TDcrc is n Rii;er: The lJlnck Stnryglc
for
Freedon in Aua'ica, published in
198[, has become almosr a Bible for the
arg'umenL "lVhile Lincoln continued to hesitate about the
legal, consrirutional, moral, and military aspects o[ the
marter,' Harding writes,
*the
relendess movemenr of the
self-liberared fugidvcs into the Union lines" so.on "ap-
proached and surpassed every level of force previous[y
knorvn-.-- ,
political issue...this ovenvhelming human movement...of
ffifrAffiEn an<I rvomen...took their freedom into their
oun han&." The Enrancip:rtion Proclamation, when it E-
nally and belatedly came, merely "confirmed and gave am-
biguous legal st:rnding to the freedom rvhich black people
had already claimed through their own surging, living
proclamarions."
During the p:rst decade this sclf-emanciparion theme
has become so pewasive among social historians that it has
vimrally achieved the stanrs of the orthodox interpretation.
The largest scholarly enterprise on the history of emanci-
pation and the transition from a slave to a free sociery dur-
l@!!g!"nFN
Vol.2No. I199+l15
By vq!_ing with their feet
their masters to Unioihil- escaPmg
ing the Civil lVar era, lhe Freedmen :rnd Southern Sociew
Project at the Universir.v of Marvland, has startrped irs im-
primaEur on rhis interpretation. The slaves, rvrite the edi-
rors of this project, r,r'ere "the prime movers in securing
rheir orvn liberc.v." The Columbia Universiry historian Bar-
b.,rraJ. Fields gave rvide publiciry to this thesis. On canrerr
in the PBS television documentary "The Civil War" and in
an essay in the larishl.r'illtrstrated volume accomp:rnying the
series, she insisted that'freedom did not conle to rhe slaves
from rvords on paper, either the *'ords of Congress or those
of the Presideng but from the initiadve o[ the slaves' them-
selves. "It rvas they who aught the nation that it must place
rhe abolition of slzvery at the head of its agenda.-.- The
slaves themselves had to make their freedom real.'
Two important corollaries of the self-emancipadon the-
role in a situation rvhich...needed to be pushed torvanl its
most profound revoludonary implicrtions." Lincoln repeat-
edly "placed the presenrtion of the rvhite Union above the
death ofblack slavery"; even as lare as August 1852, when
he wrote his famous letter to Fforace Greeley sradng thar
. 1\v
"if I could save t]re Union rvithout freeing any slave, I
{0"'ro}
would do it," he was, Harding rvrites, "still trapped in his
',
-.*'
\
'{
Own ODSesSlOn wlUl sxllng tne rvnlte Unlon at all cOStS,
vt even t}re cost of continued black slavery.' By exempting
obsession with salins the rvhite Union at all
N- lr."
I-1,
^:rr
\*
one-rhird o[ the Sourh from rhe Emanciparion Proclama-
+,{.$,t..,;;;" Fields observes,'Lincoln rvrs more deter-
t\,
\
rt'
mined ro retain the goodwill of the slave orvners than to se-
cure the liberw of the slaves." Despite Lincoln, though, "no
human being alive could have held back the ride thar s*'ept
toward freedom" by 1863. Nevertheless, Harding laments,
"while the concrete historical realities o[ the time testified
to the cosdy, daring, courageous activities of hundreds of
thousands ofbleck people breaking loose from slavery and
setting rhemseh'es free, the myth gave rhe credir for rhis
freedom to a rvhite republican presidenc" By this myth,
'the independeng radicel action of the black movemenr ro-
rvard freedom...was diminished, and the coerced, ambigu-
ous role o[a rvhire deliverer...gained preeminence.' Uni-
versiry of Pennsylvania historian Robert Engs goes even
farther; he thinls the'6ction" that ''Massa Lincoln' freed
the slaves" was a sort of tacit conspirary among whites to
convince blacks that'white America, personi6ed by Abra-
ham Lincoln,had giaea them their freedom
[rather]
than
allow them ro realize dre empowerment rhat their taking of
it implied. The poor, uneducated freedman fel[ for that
masterful propaganda stroke. But so have most of the rest
of us, black and *'hire, for over a cenrury!"
How valid are these statemens? Firsg we must recog-
nize the considerable degree of mrth in rhe main rhesis. By
16l Rcmsmraion
coming into [Jnion lines, bv rvithdrawing their labor from
Contederate orvners, bv rvorking tbr the Union army and
5enl
so-callcd'non-elites,' the slaves were neither passive
vicrims nor palvns of por*'erful rvhite males who loom so
l:rrge in our traditional image o[American history. They,
too, played a part in determining their'os'n destiny; theS
roo, made a history that hisrorians have finally discovered.
That is dl to the good. But by challenging rhe "myth" that
Lincoln freed the slaves, propbnens of the self-emancipa-
don rhesis ere in danger of creadng another myth-that he
had lirde to do with the destruction of slavery.
-[t
may rurn
out, upon close e-ramination, that the aaditional answer to
the question "!Vho Freed the Slaves?' is closer to being the
right ans*'er than is the new rnd currently more fashion-
able answer-
Firsg one must ask what s'as rhe sini qtn noz of emanci-
pation in the 1860s-the essenrial condition, the absolute
pggg!1ire,
the one thing rvithout rvhich it rvould not have
hcppened. The cleer :rnsruer is: the rvar. \\'lthout the Civil
\\hi rhere rvould have been no cifrGG-rion act, no Eman-
cipadon Proclamation, no Thirteenth Amendment (not to
menrion the Founeenrh and Fifteenth), certainlv no self-
emancipation, and almost cenainly no end of slavery for
several more decades at least. Slavery had existed in North
America for more than trvo centuries before 1861, bur ex-
cepr for a riny fracrion of slaves who fought in the Revolu-
rion, or escaped, or bought their freedom, there had been
no self-emanciparion during that dme. Every slave insur-
rection or insurrecrion conspir.rw failed in rhe end. On the
eve of the Civil lVar, planmcion agriculrure \t'as more pro[-
itable, slavery more entrenched, slu'e o\r'ners nrore pros-
perous, and the "slave porver' more dominant rvithin the
South if not in the nation ar lrrrge than it had ever been.
Without the war, the door to freedom would have remained
closed for an indeterminate length of time.
What brought rvar and opened that door? The answer,
is that secession
on the lvar. [n both
Abraham Lincoln moves to center stagie. Seven stares se-
ceded and flormed the Confederary bec"@"n elecrion
to the presidency on an antislavery pl"tf".n
;
f";**?-
freedom was the decision makins of Abraham
Lincoln act-
ing as antislavew political leader, president-clect, president,
and commander-in-chief.
The statement quoted above, that Lincoln "placed
the
preservacion of the rvhite Union above thc death of black
a
of credit for achievins their own
nt ally of black free-
,
"played an actively conserv'ative
States
ceded after
escalated to full-scale rrar
llion. The com-
*on d.r--mnator in a[ thG[3
L
n'
I
o
s6very,'while
true in a narrow sense, is highly misletding
when
shorn of is conte.xt. From 185.t, *'hen he rerurned
to policics,
until nominaced for president in 1860, the
dominant,
unifring rheme o[ Lincoln's career rvas opposi-
don
to the expansion of slavery as the vital first srep ro-
ward
placing it on the course o[ ultimate extincrion. A sru-
issue"
min-rhe issue being slavery. RepeatedlS Lincoln
denounced
slavery as a'monstrous injuscice,"'an unqual-
ified cvil to the ne8To, to the rvhite man, ro the soil, and to
the Stetq'He attzcked his main political rival, Stephen.L
Douglas,
for his "declarcd indifference" to the moral
wrong of slavery Douglas
ulooks
to ao end of tbc institution
of slcacry," said Lincoln. "That is the real issue. That is the
issue rhat will continue in this country when these poor
tongues ofJudge Douglas and myself shall be silent. ft is
the cternal
and
niry and the other the divine right o[
kingp.... No marter in rvhat shape it comes, rvherher from
the mouth of a king who seeks ro bestride the people of
his own nation and live by rhe fruit of their labor, or from
one race of men as an apology for enslar.ing anorher race,
practices, and polic.v, which h'rrrmonize rvith it.... If rve do
this, we shall nor only have s:rved rhe
(Jnion;
but rre shall
have so saved ir, as to nrake, :rnd to keep it, forever ruorthv
of the saving.'
rhe ideas and ageno'of Abrlh:rm Lincoln rhan from
,;rher single cruse.
But, u'e must ask, not the elecrion of
Iican in t860 h
ate hrd been_$rvard-B3tes, rvho might concei-r-
,rbly have rvon the eleJtion but had ,rot .rr.ri an ouBide
given him a more radical repurarion rh:rn Lincoln. But Se-
rvard might not have rvgn tle election. More ro the poing if
he had ryon, seven smres would undoubtedly have seceded.
ttlose seven back in. Most important of all, he would have'
c"il?f6TT-on Sunrter and thereby exringuished the spark
rhat threatened to fla1ne into rvar. As it was, Seward did his
best to compel Lincoln into concessions and evacuarion.
But Lincoln stood firm. \\hen Servard flirred rvith the no-
tion of supporting the Critrenden Compromise, which
rvould have repudiated the Republican plrrtflorm by permit.
dng rhe espansion of slavery', Lincoln sriffened the back-
bones of Ser+ard and orher key Republican leaders. "Enrer-
tain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the a-r-
tension of slavery" he lerote to them. 'The nrg has ro come,
& beacr now, than anv time hereafter." Crirtenden's com-
promise'would lose everything rve gained by the election."
The proposal for concessions, Lincoln poinred our,
(ac-
knowledges that slavery has equal righs with liberw, and
surrenders all rve have contended for.... We have just
car-
ried an election on principles fairlv sr:rted to rhe people.
Now s'e rre told in rdvance, the governnrent sh:rll be bro-
ken up, unless rve surrender to those s'e hirve berrren-... IF
s'e surrender, it is the end o[us. Thcv rrill rcpear rhe exper-
iment upon us td libituu. A year rvill nor pass, rill rve shall
have to take Cuba as a condicion upon rvhich thev will stay
in the Union."
'
[t is worth emphasizing here that fi. .on]g3!ggi-
nlgr-in these leners from Lincoln to Ripublican leaders
w1; sla"ery.
T
b be sure, on the mafters of slavery where it
already existed and enforcement of the fugitive slave provi-
sion of the Conscitution, Lincoln was willing to reassure the
South. But on the cnrcial issue of 1860, slavery in rhe terri-
tories, he refused to compromise, and this refusal kept his
assertion that Lincoln "placed the preservation of the rvhite
Union above the death of black slavery." The Crinenden
Compromise did indeed place presewarion of the Union
above the death of slavery. So did Seward; so did most white
Americans during dre secession crisis. But that assertion
does zor describe Lincoln. the core of ,.r-
x
to
i-a private letter to his old friend
rn]'
denr of Lincoln's oratory has esrimared that.he gave 175 chance of rvinning the nominacion-]Es_r-qlmgfSSaainly-lf
political
ipeeches during'those six y.".r. ih.-"cenual
Uh
H. S@had been ,h. nil*inffiil-d',
...1i..
message'
of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a "one- talk of a 'higher larv" and an "irrepressible conflict" had
"1.
It
n
t-
rte
'e
:o
:n
r-
-h
:-
5
lrte
rtu
:t-
Southerners read Lincoln's speeches; cheyknerv bv hean
his words about rhe house divided and rhe ultimate e.rtinc-
tion of slavery. Lincoln's election in 1860 was a sign rhar
they had losr conrol of rhe national governmenq if they re-
mained in the lJnion, they feared that uldmate extincdon of
their way of life would be their destiny. That is rvhy they se-
ceded.
It was not merely Lincoln's election, but his election
es a priacipkd
opporcnt
ttl*q
on norul grouzlr that pre-
cipitated
secession- Militant abolitionists critical of Lincoln
for falling
shon of their orvn stand:rrd nevertheiess recog-
nized
this ruth.
States.'
Without Lincoln's elecdon, southern states would
-he
it is the same tyrannical principle."
fs!9!p!!-ofrh.
Declaretion oflndependence and the principle ofslarery
said Lincoln, "cannot srand to re
other man rvho mieht conceiv-
:rblv have been elected
!i,1. I \b. , 19911 t7
Y
.\le.xander Stephens, "You think slavery is rigbt and ousht to
be errended; rvhile rve think it isunng and ought to be re-
srricted. That I suppose is the rub." It was indeed the rub.
Even more than in his election to the presidenry, Lincoln's
refusal to cornpromise on the expansion of slavery or on
Fon Sumrer proved decisive. If any other. man had been in
his position, the course of history-ind of emancipition-
rvould have been different. Flere again rve have rvithout
question rsiniqtunon.
[t is quite mre, of course, that once the war stnrted, Lin-
coln moved more slor,r'ly and reluctandy torvard making it a
sar for cmancipation than bleck leaders, abolidoniss, rad-
ical Republicrns, and thc slaves themselves wanted him to
mov'e. He did reassure southern whites that he had no in-
tention and no constirurional power to inrcrfere with slav-
cr1 in the states. [n September 186l and Mly 1862, he re-
voked orders by Generals Fr6mont and Hunter freeing thc
slaves of Confederates in their mititary districts. In Decem-
ber l86l he forced Secretary of War Cameron to delete a
paragraph from his annual report recommending the free-
ing and arnring o[slaves. .{nd though Lincoln signed rhe
confscation
'rrcs
o[ Augusc l86l and
Juty
1862 rhat provid-
ed for freeing some slaves owned by Confederates, this leg-
isladon did not come from his initiative. The initiative was
taken out in the field by slaves rvho escaped to Union lines
and officers like General Beniamin Buder who accepted
them as'concraband of r,lar."
All of this appears to support the thesis rhar slaves eman-
ciprted themselves and that Lincoln's image as emancipator
is a myth. But let us take a closei look It seems clear todaS
;.s it did to people in 1861, that no
won, slavery if not de-
sroved; if the Confederacy won, slavery would survive and
perhaps grow stronger from the poswar territorial erpan-
sion of an independent and confident slave power. Thus
Lincolqh-Ephrsis on the prioriqf of Union had positive
implicarions for emancipation, while precipitrrte or prema-
rure actions agahSrsffiry might jeopardize the cause of
Union and therefore boomerang in favor of slavery-
Lincoln's chief concern in l86t \vas to maintain a united
coalition of War Democrats and border-state Ljnioniss as
rvell as Republicans in support of the rvar effort To do this
he considered it essential to de6ne the war as being waged
solely for Union, which united this coalirion, and nor a war
against slaverv. rvhich rvould fragment it. When General
Frmont issued his emancipacion edict in Missouri, on Au-
gust J0, 1861, thc political and militery efforts to preyenr
Kennrcky, Maryland, and Missouri from seceding and to
cultivate Unioniss in rvestern Virginia and eastern Ten-
nessee were at a crucial suge, balancing on e krifc edge. If
he had let Fr6mont's order stand, explained Lincoln to his
old friend Senator Orville Browning of Illinois, it would
i3l Rcorctnutin
have been "popular in some quarrers, and would have been
more so if ir had been a general declar:rtion o[ emancipa-
rion." But this would have lost t]re war by driving Kenrucky
inro secession. "I think ro lose Kentuclcy is nearly the same
as to lose the *'hole game. Kennrcky gone. we can not hold
Missouri, nor,. as I thin( Maryland. These all against us,
and dre
job on our hands is'too large. for us. We'woul,l as
rvell consent t6 separation'it once, including the surrender.
of this capitol."
There is no reeson to doubt the sincerity and sagaciry of
rhis statement. Lincoln's greatest skills as a polidcal leader
were his sensitiviry ro public opinion and his sense of dm-
ing. He understood that while a majority of Republicars by
the spring of 1862 favored a war against slavery a decided
majoriry of his Union coalirion did not. During those
spring monrhs he alrernately coaxed and prodded border-
sate Unioniss rorvard recognition of the inevitable escala-
don ofthe conflict into a rvar against slavery and toward ac-
ceprance of his plan tbr compensated emanciparion in their
stetes. He rvarned southern Unionists and northern
Democrars that he could not fight this rvar'rvith elder-stalk
squirs, charged n'irh rose rvater.... This governmenE can-
not much longer play a game in which it stakes all, and its
enemies suke nothing. Those enemies must understand
rhat rhey cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy
the governmeng and if they fail sdll come back into the
Union unhurt."
Lincoln's meaning, though veiled, was clear; h.e was
about to add the weapon of emancipation to his arsenal.
lVhen he penned these warningp, inJuly 1862, he had made
up his mind to issue an emancipation proclamarion.
l\trereas a year rtarlier, even three months cirrlier, Lincoln
had betieved that avoidance of the emancipation issue rves
necessary to maintain that knife-edge balance in the Union
coalition, things had now changed. The war had escalated
in scope and 6:ry, mobilizing all the resources of both sides,
including the slave labor force of rhe Confederacy. The im-
minent prospect of Union victory in the spring had been
shredded by Robert E. Lee's successful counteroffensive in
preservation of the Union." "The slaves,' he told his cabi-
neg rvere "undeniably an element of strength to those who
had their sen'ice, and we must decide whether that element
should be with us or against us." Lincoln had earlier hesi-
tated to rct agairst slavery in thc sutes because thc Consti-
nrdon protected it there. But most s[aves were the proper-
ty of enemics waging war against the United States, and
"the
rebels,' said Lincoln, "could not at the same dme
duow off the Constitution and invoke is aid.... Decisive
and extensive measures must be adopted.... We
[want]
the
the
oon
the Seven Days. The risk of alienating dre border states
and nonhern Democrats wglow
. Lincoln was now convt
I
arrny to strike more vigorous blows. The Adminisuation
must set an example, and srike at the heart of the rebel-
lion"-slavery.
IVlonrgomery Blair, speaking flor the forces
of conservatism in the North and border srares, warned o[
the corsequences among'these groups of an emancipadon
proclamation. But Lincoln was done conciliadng these ele-
ments. He had uied to make the border states see reason;
.
'
4ciw'we,
must make the fonvard movement' without them.
.
' '
"'fh.y
*ill acquiesce, if not imrhediately, soon." fu for drd
nofthern
Democras, "their club3 would be used agzirst us
take whar course we might "
In 1864, speaking to a visiting deleg"arion of abolition-
iss, Lincoln explained why he had moved more slowly
rgairut slavery than they had urged. Having taken en oath
to preserve and defend the Constitution, which protected
slavery "I did not
'Sate'
institution of 'Slavery' for
when
rt would not have
try had not been ready for the Emanciparion Proclamation
in September [862, cven in
January
186J. Democraric
gains in the northern congressional elecrions in rhc fall of
1869 resulted in part from a vorer backlash ag"ainsr the pre-
liminary Emancipation Proclamation. The crisis in morale
in the Union armies and swelling Copperhead sEength
during the winter of 1863 grew in part from a resentfrrl
conviction thar Lincoln had unconstitutionally uans-
formed the purpose of the rvar from resroring the Union to
freeing the slaves. \\,irhout quesdon, this issue biaerly di-
vided the North and threatened fatally ro erode suppon for
the war effort-the very consequence Lincoln had feared
in 1861 and that Montgomery Blair feared in 1862. Not
until after the twin miliriry victories ar Gemysburg ind
Viclsburg did this divisiveness diminish and emancipation
gaia a dear mandate in the off-year elections of 1863. In
his annual message of December 1863, Lincoln acknorvl-
edged that his Emancipation Proctamation a year earlier
had been
"followed by dark and doubtful days." But now,
he added,
"the
crisis which threatened to divide the friends
of the Union is past."
Even that statement nrrned out to be premature and
optimistic.
In the summer of 1864, northern morale again
plummeted
and the emanciparion issue once more threat-
ened
to undermine the war effort. By Augusr, Granrt cam-
paign
in Virginia had boggcd down in the trenches after
cnorrnous
casualties, while Sherman seemed similarly
stymied.
War weariness and defeatism corroded the will of
nonherners
as they contemplated the staggering cost of
this
conflict in the lives of their young men. Lincoln came
under enormous pressure to open peace negotiations
to
end rhe slaughter. Even though
Jefferson
Davis insisted
that Confederate independence r,r-as his essendal condidon
for peace, northern democras managed to convince a
grear many northern people rhat only Lincoln's insisrence
on emancipation blocked peace. A rypical Democraric
newspaper edirorial declared ther 'rens of thousands
of
white men must yet bite rhe dust to qllay
the negro mania
of the President."
":'
'
like Horace Greeley, who had criti-
cized to embrace
al convention
ations to
this election. The rVco York Timcs editor and Republican
national chairman Henry Raymond told Lincoln that'two
special czluses are assigned
[for]
this great reaction in pub-
lic sentiment-the rvant ofmilitary success, and the impres-
'
sion...that we can have peace rvith Union if we rvould...
[but
rhat you are] 6ghdng not for Union but for rhe aboli-
don of slavery."
The pressure on Lincoln ro back down on emancipation .
caused him to waver temporarily, but not to buckle. lrutead,
he told weak-kreed Republicans that "no human po*'er can
subdue this rebellion withouq using the Emancipation lever
as I have done." Some 130,000 soldiers and sailors rvere
fighting for rhe lfnion, Lincoln noted. They would not do
so if they thought the North intended to'betray them.... If
they stake their lives for us thev must be prompted by the
sEongest motive...the promise of freedom. And the
promise beine made, must be kep r. . ..}erctrrc-bgamsn
the black rvarri
will."
ro lose the
presidential election. In effecg he was saying that
la-
:trl
k
1S
t
U(
r
;
-d
rs
rion
d
t. ;l
: im-
':n
rv
n.
.1
s
rn
fL.as
-g-
ll-
r@. In manyways thiswas his
6nest hour. As matters nrrned out, of course, he was borh
o-
cipa-
.:
q.e
,-i-
: rvho
'l :nt
ti-
or^.i-
right and president. Sherman's capture of Atlana, Sheri-
dan's victories in the Shenandoah Valley, and military suc-
cess elsewhere transformed the northern mood from deep-
est despair in August 1864 to determined confdence by
November, and Lincoln was triumphandy reelected- He
won without compromising one inch on the emancipation
question.
It is instnrctive to consider rwo possible alternatives to
this outcome. If the
onr-
;, td
rl
cisivc
r
'\e
with slavery. Every political observer, including Lincoln
Tiffived in August that the Republicans would lose
live!..-rlIa
six monrhs earlier
lt.
enemtes, come w
at best the Union
L-
menq at
Vol.2 No. I 1944l39
I
the stcadfast purpose of Abraham Lincoln than to any orh-
er single factor.
The proponens of the self-emanciparion thesis, horver'-
er, rvould avow rhat all of this is irrelevanr. I[ it is true, as
Barbara Fields maintains, that by the time of the Emanci-
padon Proclemarion "no humln being alive could have held
birck the tide that swepr roward freedom," that tide must
.h"r.
t*.I
even more powerfrrl by the fall of 1864. ,".,
t:
.
u'ere compelled to retreat from areas of the Confed.:t;
where their presence had attracted and liberated conra-
bands, the dde of slaveqy closed in behind rhem. Lee's army
capnrred dozens of black pcople in Pennsylvania inJune
186l and sent them back South into slavcry. Hundre& of
black Union soldiers caprured by Confederate forces were
reenslaved. Lincoln himself took note of rhis phenomenon
whcn he warned that if "the pressure of the war should call
off our forces from New Orleans to defend some other -
point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing rhe
black to slavery again; for I am told that whenever rhe
rebels take any black prisoners, Free or slave, thev immedi-
arely auction them ofl" The edirors oi rhe Freed-
men's and Sourhern Sociery Project, rhe most
scholarly advocares of the self-emanciparion the-
sis, concede rhat 'southern armies could recap-
nrre black people who had already reached Union
lines.... lndeed, any Union rerreaE could reverse
the process o[ liberation and throw men and
women r*'ho tasred freedom backinro bondage....
Their ravail testified to the link berween rhe mi[-
itary success of rhe Northern armies and rhe lib-
erty of Southern staves.'
Precisely. Thar is the crucial point. Slaves did
mander-in<hief that called these armies into be-
..--.-
ing, appoinrct[ their generals, and gave rliem di-
rection and purpose? There, indubitably, is our
sini qua aon.
But let us acknowledge that once the war was
carried into slave territory no matter how it came
out, the ensuing'friction and abrasion" (as Lin-
coln once put ir) rvould enable thousands ofslaves
to esc:lpe ro freedom. In tlrar respect, a degree o[
self-emrncip.tuon
did occur. But even on a large
scale, such emancipation was very different from
rvas also his policies and his skillful polidcal lead-
ership that ser in morion rhe processes by which
1O I Rctorumaion
the reconsEucred or Unionisr strres of Louisiana, Arkansas,
Tennessee, r\'[an'land, and Missouri abolished the instiru-
tion in those strtes during the rvar iuelf.
Regrettablr', Lincoln did not live to see the 6nal rarifica-
tion of the Thineenth Amendment. But if he had zsu'ez
lived, ir seems sufe to sav that rre would not have had a
Thineenth Amendment in 1865. In that sense, the tradi-
.
rional answer.io thq quesgion "!Vho freed the slaves?" is the
"rightir-rswer. Lincolh did.not accomplish this in thi manner
'
sometimes symbolically portrayed, breaking the chains o[
helpless and passive bondsmen with the stroke of a pen by
signing the Emanciparion Proclamation. But by pronounc-
rnc sl;ry a morar evu ura! must come to-lnEit?i-<iThEn-
g
@ring
the Presidency in 1860, provoking the South to se-
cede,
pi-nsion or on Fort Sumter, knining together a Unionist
)6
the
ipadon in the second, rchrsmg to
irEd
Lincoln
a vital role,
Emancipation and Its Meaning
in
American
Life
-\,N
JANUARY
l, t86J,,\lrrah:rrrr [,incgln prornul- Lincoln's edict as thgoccasion to call for rapprochement
I I
-gared
his Em:rncip:rdon Proctirnuti11n. A docu- betwccn black and white in a racially dirided ciry, in a
\U7
i,"nt *hore grrn.l ti,l.
Prorrrisctl
so nruch but raciatly divided nation- Dismissing the notion that Lincoln
whose bland ,rords deli=rercd so tiide, the Ernancipation embodied-rather
than uanscended-American racism
Proclamation was :rn enigrnl frorrr thc ti.st. C.rrrrempo-
('Thc greatest honky of them all,"
Julius
Lester once de-
raries were unsure.rvhether to conrlcurn
clared), the men and women who parad-
it as a faiturg of itlealisrn or rrpplrrrrrl it :rs
ed beforc the Proclamarion saw the doc-
a triumph of rutpotitik,:lnrl the ,\ureri-
ument as a balm' [t was as if Lincoln-'
cln
or his words<
vide
r
tr
ages and-heal t
sore
t
b
CarterHanes'
the
school teacher
Jubi
elves. to see the Proclamadon had iniriated the
iaue taken to celebr,rring their liber,rtion
xhibit, told rePorters of her hopes that
onJuneteenth, a prer.ioislv littte-knorvl
the display would inaugurace another
marker of the arrival of thl Union ,rrmy
new birth of freedom'
ant The
Public Presentation
of
the brought historians out in force'
ex- the American Historical fusociati
ralforethought--convenedapanelendtled'Black'White'
srndLincoln."ProfessorJamesi\1..\{cPhersonofPrinceton
e Universiw delivered the lead paper endtled 'tr\'ho Freed
was a moment of sonre note. The cxhihit scnt thorrsrnds o[
Americans into the streetst s'hcre thcv rv:rircrl in lons lines
on frigidJlnuary tllvs to see Lincrrlnis h:rrrrliwork. l\t the
end of the 6ve-day exhibit, sorrre .]0,000 h:rd filed pust the
Proclamation. As visitors left the :\rchives' grcat rorunda,
the minions of
Qan
Rather, Bn'ent Cuurble, and Tom
Brokaw waited with microphones in hlntl. Bcf<rre nadonal
television audiences, visitors tlechretl thcrrrsclves deeply
moved by the great document. One tokl :r rclxlncr from the
Washkgton Por that it h'rrd ch,rnged his lifc f<rrcver.
Such interest in a docuurent rvhose Ertlctl words crnnot
bc casily seen, let alone deciphered, '.rnr.l rvhose inrricate
logic cannot be ersilv unr..rveletl, let :rtonc cornprehended,
raises imponrnt quesrions lbout rhc rolc o[ hisrory in the
way
Americans think
..rbour
thcir r,rci..rl p:rst rrnd present- It
appears
that theaery
rcnt:r frrcal
poi
for i6fr
many
the Slaves?'
For histori:rns, the issues involt'ed in llcPherson's
ques-
rion-and by imptication Lincoln's proclamation-took
on
.r"n gr"".". *.igh. because they represenYl,a
lgfflde-
bate
{
I
It
I
speaks
thc distance the funeric.rn people h:rve travelled
from
the nighunarish rqrliw of sl:rv..r-L. tlistrnt humilia-
tlon
too painful to spe.rk of.' For others, it surgess the dis-
trnce
that has yet
to be traversell-"$.s h:rvc ro lluild on the
changes
that sianed sith our :lncesros I ]0 vc..rs
..rgo.'
Bur,
however
they viervecl the Prochnr:rrion, tlrc visirors used
plrA@;p*t.d
in the guise of a contest berween social
irir,o.".t d
p"ti,lcat history. Although the categories them-
cnrralist
sence of
least for
scholars.
The question of rvho freed the slaves thus not only en-
.o-p.rr.d the specific issue of responsibiliry for emancipa-
tion in the Amirican South, but also resonated
loudly in
contemporary controversies about the role o[ "Great White
Iv1en" in r,r, hirto.y book and the canon of "Great Litera-
hrre'in our curriculum- McPhersonb
paper and the discus-
sion that followed reverbcrated
with sharp condemnations
and stout defenses of "great white males'" Lines berween
scholars who gave "wo-rkers,
immigtans' [and]
women'"
their due and
-those
who refused to acknowledge
the
sso-
crlled 'non-elite'"
were drawn taut' "Elitist history"
was
celebrated and denounced-
or
rnd shite. the Prrrclurrration be-
The debate among historians, although often paiochial
and self-absorbed, was not without its redeeming feacures.
For like the concerns articulated by the visitors to the Na-
tional fuchives, it too addressed conflicting nocions about
the role of high authority,'on tfie one hand, and the actions
of ordinary men and women, on the othei in shaping
Americen rdg.y, Both the citizens whd qu.cued upbutride
rhe Arcfu-ves ahd the sctiolirs *ho debatiC rhiiisut wiihin .
rhe confnes'of thi American Historical Associarion's meer-
'
ing found deep resonance in'the exhibition of rhe Emanci-
pation Proclamation. It gave both re.son to consider rhe
stnrggle for a politics (and a history) that is both apprecia-
tivc of ordinary people and respcctful of righdrl authority
in a democratic society.
The debate over origins of emancipation in rhe Ameri-
can South can be parsed in such a way as to divide histori-
ars into two clmps, those who understand emancipation as
tlre slaves'smrggle to free themselves and those who see
The Great Emancipatorb hand at worlc lVIcPherson made
precisely such a division. While ackrowledging the role of
the slaves in their own liberation, McPherson came down
heavily on the side of Lincoln as the author o[ emancipa-
tion. He characterized the cridcs of Lincoln's preemi-
nence-advocates of what he repeatedly called rhe "self-
emancipation thesis"-as scholarly populists whose srcck in
rade was e celebradon of thc "so-callcd 'non-elite.'" Such
scholars, McPherson implied, denied the historical role of
"white males"-perhaps all regularly consriruted authori-
ty-in a misguided celebration of the masses. Among rhose
so denominated byMcPherson were Robert Engs, Mncent
Harding, and myself and my colleagues on the Freedmen
and Southern Society Proiect at the lJniversiry ofl\{ary-
land. While otfier scholars rvere implicared, the Freedmen
and Southern Sociery Project-"the largest scholarly enter-
prise on the history of emancipatien'-1yx5 held responsi-
ble for elevating the "self-emanciparion rhesis" into what
McPherson called a new orthodoxy. If such be rhe case, [-
and I am sure the other members of the Project-am hon-
ored by the unanimiry with which the Project's work has
been accepted by a profession that rarely agrees on any-
tling. However, McPherson's representation of the Pro-
jectk position does no justice
to dre argumens made in
Freedon: A Dorutnntary Histoty of Enancipation Indeed, it is
more in the narure of a caricanrre than a characterizarion.
More than l35,OO0 slave men became Union soldiers.
Evcn
decp in the Confederacy, where escapc to fedcral lines
was
impossible, slaves did what thcy could to undermine
thc
Confederacy and srcngthen the Union-from aiding
cs-
caped northcrn prisoners of war to prafng for norrhc{
miiiury success. With their loyalty, their l-abor and
thcir
power as commander-in-chief and was subject to qqnstitu-
rional challenFe. Even Lincoln recogniilrhe limiudons
o[[ut illdefined wamime authority, aF{,.s his commitrnent
'
to emincipitigh grcw firmer in t863'and '1864,
he pressed..
foi passage of a constihrdohal amendment to affirm'Slav-''
ery's desmrction..
VVhat then was the point of the Proclamation? It spoke
in muffled tones that heraldid not dre dawn of universal
liberry but thi compromised and piecemeal arrival of an
unde6ned freedom. Indeed, fiqP@,
ri-diorled as having rhe moral
Ersndcuf
of a bill of lading,
this insight and expanded itin Frccdom.
From rhe first guns at Fom Sumter, the suongest advo-
cates o[ emancipation were the slaves themselves. Lacking
polidcal standing or public voice, forbidden access to the
weapons ofwar, slaves nevenheless tossed aside the grand
pror,orrr..*ens of Lincoln and other Union leaders that
the sectional conflict was only a war for national
"nity.
I"-
stead, they movcd direcdy to put their own freedorn-and
that of their posterity-atop the national agenda. Sreadily,
as oppomrnicies arose, slaves risked all for freedom. By
abandoning their owners, coming uninvited into Uriion
lines, and offering their assistance as laborers, pioneers,
guides, and spies, slaves forced federal soldiers at rhe lowest
level to recognize their imponance to the Union's success.
That understanding travelled quickly up the chain of com-
mand. In time, it became evident even to the most obnrse
federal commanders that every slave who crossed into
Union lines was a double gain: one subracted from the
Cdnfedcracy and one added to the Union. The slaves' reso-
lute determination to secure their libemy converted many
white Americans to the view that the seorriry of the Union
depcnded upon the desmrcdon of slavery. Evennrally, this
belief dpped the balance in favor of freedom, even among
those who had little interest in the question of slavery and
no love for black people.
Once rhe connecrion betwecn tlte war and freedom
had
been made,
tm-
could to it. TheY
threw their full weight be
reach of federal authoriry. It specifically exempted Ten- "tabooed" those few in tl'reir ranks who shunned the effort'
nessee and Union-ocorpied portiors of Louisiana and Mr-
ginia, and it left slavery in the lopl border srares-
Delaware, Marf and, Kennrcky, and Missouri-untouchcd.
lndced, as an engine of emancipation, the Prodamqtion
uly
ro-
t
rhat their owners were disloyal, as well as those
ar rhc bottom. McPherson is correct in noting that the edi-
ro.rlf thiE..dmen and Southern Society Project seized
ion, as its critics have
47 I Rcowtnnin
livcs,
slaves
provided crucial informadon, muscle, and
blood
in suppon
of the federal war effort. No one was more
responsible
for smashing the shackles of slavery than the
slavcs
dlemselves'
Bur,
as the slaves realized, they could not frei them-
sclves.
Nowhere
in'the four volumes of Frccdqn do the ed-
nd Southern Society.Project'claim .
'
the eilitors nt.,l* ii# of.oself-'
ould.-and they did;put the issui
of freedom
on the wartime"agenda; they could-and they
did-oake
certein that the question of their liberation did
not
disappear
in the complex welter of the war; thcy
could-and
they did-insure that there wes no retreet from
the commitrnent to emancipation once the issue was drawn.
presidenr However, the actions of the slaves made it possi-
blJfor cidzeru, legislators, military oF6cers, and the presi-
dent to act. Thus, in many rva1c, slaves set otlters in morion.
Slaves were the prime movers in the emancipation iliiffia,
nor the sole movers. It does no disservice to Lincoln<r to
enyone else-to say that his claim to greatrless rests upon
his willingncss to act when the moment was righu
Lincoln, es McPherson emphasizes, was no friend of
slavery. He believed, as he said many times, ihat "if slavery
is not wrong, nothing is r*'rong." But, as president, Lincoln
also believed he had a constitudonal obligarion not to in-
tcrfere with slavery where it existed. Shortly before his in-
augu.ration, he offered to support a proposed conscirudon-
al amendment that would have prohibited any subsequent
amendment authorizing Congress "to abolish or inter-
fere...with the domestic institutions of any state, including
slavery." fu wartime leader, he feared the disaffection of the
loyal slave states, which he understood to be critical to the
voked martial law to liberate slaves in Missouri and South
Carolina, respectively. Through the 6rsr year and a half of
the war, Lincoln-preoccupied with the loyalry o[ the
slaveholding states within the Union and hopeful for the
support of Whiggish slaveholders. within the Confedera-
cy-remained respeciful of the rights o[ t]re master.
.
fu pressure. for emancifadon grew in the spring of 1862,
Lincoln c-ontinued to.urge.fridual, cogtpensated emancipa-
don- The compensadon would be tb slaveholders'for prop,
crry lost, nor to slaves for labor. stolen. In late September
1862, cven while announcing that *'e would proclaim
emancipadon on
January
I if the rebellious sates did not
renrn to the Unioru he continued to call for gradud, com-
pcrsated emancipation in the border states and compcnsa-
don for loyal slaveholders elsewhere. The preliminary
emancipation proclamation also reiterated his support for
colonizing freed slaves'upon this condnent or elsewhere."
fu black laborers became cssential to the Union war cffon
and as demands to enlist black men in the federel ermy
mounted, the pressure for emancipation became inerorable.
out question, some would have acted more cautiously with
lesser resolve. In the end, Lincoln did what needed to bc
done. Others might be left behind; Lincoln would not.
Thus, when Lincoln finally acted, he moved with con6-
dence and determination. He stripped the final Emancipa-
tion Proclamation of any reference to comPensation for
former slaveholders or colonization for former slaves. He
added provisions rhar allowed for the service of black men
in the Union army and narv The Proclamation opened the
door to the evennral enlistment of nearly 190,000 black
men-most of them former slaves. Miliury enlistment be-
came the surest solvent of slavery extending to places the
Emancipation Proclamation did not reach, especially the
loyal slave states. Oncc slave men entered the Union army'
they were free and they made it clear they expected their
families to be free roo. In March 1865, Congress conErmed
this understanding and provided for the freedom of the im-
mediate families of all black soldiers. Lincolnt actions'
however tardy, gave force to all that t}re slaves had risked.
The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the war in
ways only the President could. Afu{anuary
f,
1863, the
-trincffinderstood
the importance of his role, both po-
liticalty and morally-just es the slaves had understood
thcirs. Having determined to frce lhc slaves, Lincoln de-
clarcd hc would not take back the Emancipation Proclama-
don cven when miliary failure and political reverses threat-
ened that poliry. He praised the role of black soldiers
in
prcscrving the Union and liquidating chamcl bondage'
The
success of rhe Union. Lpcol@.btffietherwhite
aq5!-!!3gk could live i-.q,r"k@
fromTh.tiFfeErson to HenryClay, tt""a" A**(t*
. At his
for the
emancipation
of slaves in the District oIColumbia in April
1862 included an appropriation to aid the removal of liber-
ated slaves who wished ro leave rhe United Sures. Through
the end of 1862, Lincoln continually connected emancipa-
tion in the border srates to the colonization of slaves some-
where
beyond the borders of the United States.
Where others led on emancipation, Lincoln followed.
Lincoln
respondcd slowly to demands for cmancipadon as
they worked their way up the military chain of command
and as they echoed in northern public opinion. He revoked
the ficld emanciparions of Union generalsJohn C. Fr6mont
in August 186l and David Hunter in May 1862, who in-
Vol.2 No. , 19941 4,
grolr'ing
presence of hlack men in Union rank deepened
Lincolnb
commisncnt to emancipation. Lincoln larer sug-
gested thar black sol<licrs mighr have the r-ote, perhaps his
greatestconcession r() rlcial equrliry. To secure the freedom
that his Pr<lchmation had promised, Lincoln promoted
passage of the Thinccnth Arnendmenr, akhough he did not
.
live to see its rarification.
The Emancipation.Proclamariont
place in the drama of
.emauciparion
is thussccUre-rsjs
isto
'
ignore'the intense s'trtiggle by rth It is
.
to ignore the Union soldiers whb abo-
litioniss who stumped tbr emancipation, and the thousands
him to the forefronr of freedom's friends. Ir emphasizes
the
clash of rvills thar is the essence of polirics-rvhether
it in_
rolvrs enfranchised legislators or voteless slaves.
politics,
perforce, necessitares an on-the-ground struggle arnons
different inrerests, not the unfoldine o[ a single idea o. p..I
specrive-wherher rhar of an indiridual or an age. Lincoln,
no less tlan rhe meanest slave, acred upon changing
possi-
bilities as he underitood them: The very same even6-ac-
roles limis understand-
ing of the complex inreraction of human agenry and evens
which resulted in shvery's demise. The Freedmen and
Southern
of the hi
upon wh
documen
rhe editors argue rhxr rhe slaves were in facr the prime
movers of emanciparion,
norvhere do they deny Lincoln's
cenraliry ro the even6 rhat culminated in universal [ree-
dom. In fact, rather thrrn single out slaves or exclude Lin-
coln (as the term "self-emancipation"
implies), rhe editors
lv moved ii iiTTreedom.
This roster, of course, does
n
fie social and polirical pro-
cess thlt ended slaverv in the American South. It omis the
slaveholders, no bit pllyers in the drama- Tiken as a whole,
however, the Project's r*'ork does suggest something of the
complexiry of em:rnciprrtion
rnd the limitarion oiseeing
slavery's end as the product of any one individual---or ele-
ment-in the social order.
Emphasizing th,ri ernancip,rtion was not tl.le work of one
hand underscores rhe force of conringenry-the crooked
course by rvhich unir.crsal fr
ebb and flow of evcnts wh
among the opponents of em
c6lilloul <[ han- a nEcr-p-CEf-Ehe5e-ch a n ges--o r, m e 19
strangelysdl[, somehow embodied them-imbues him with
power over the course of everfts that no human being
has
ever enjoyed. Lincoln wrc
nart
of hiqtory, not :bor.e
1g
with time because it had to. The slaves' commicment to
universal freedom did not wavcr because it could not.
Complexiry<ontrary to i\IcPherson-is not ambiva-
lence or ambiguicy. Ib tell the rvhole story-to follow that
crooked courseioes not diminish the clariry of an argu-
rnenr or mystifu it into a maze of "nuunces, prrrudox. or
irony."
'[blling
the entire tale is not a form of obscur..rdon. If
done righg it clariGes precisely because it consolidates the
mass of competing claims under a single head. Elegance or
simplicity o[ argument is useful only when it encompasses
all of the evidence, not when ir excludes or narrows it.
In a season when consrinrted authoriry once again ries
to 6nd the voice of the people and rvhen the people are test-
ing the measure of their leaders, it is well to recall rhe rela-
rionship of both to securing freedom's greatest victory. In
this sense, slaves rvere right in celebradngJanuery l, [86],
as the Day ofJubilee..& Lorene Hrnes noted Ii0 r'ears lat-
er, 'It meant so much to people because it rvas a rav o[ light,
the hope of a new day coming. And it gave them courage.'
Indeed, the Emancipation Proclamation reminds us all-
both those viewing its faded pages and those who srudied
it-that real changes derive from the actions of the peofle
and requires the imprimatur of consdnrted authoriry. The
Emancipacion Proclamation teaches that'social' historv
is
no less political than "polirical" history-for it too ress
upon the bending of wills, which is the essence of politics-
and that no political process is determined by a single indi-
vidual. If the Emancip:rtion Proclamation speak to rhe cen-
rral role of consriruted authoriw-in this case Abraharu
Lincoln-in making history it spealis no less loudlv to the
role of ordinary men and women, seizing the moment
to
make the rvorlJ according to their or"r, inde.standing
of
jusdce and human decenry. The connection benreen
the
tw'o should not be forgotten as lve try to rebuild funerican
politics-end try to write a history worthy of that politics'
r
Both
I incoln
and the slaves played their inted
rn the drama of emancipation- From a
44 I Rccoumtaion