ACP U.S. History
The Emancipation Proclamation Essay
President Abraham Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. This proclamation, in summary, stated that on the first of January in 1863, all African-Americans on the south side are now free from slavery but need to escape on their own. This document is politically motivated and morally motivated. This is shown throughout the document in what president Lincoln was saying. Political and moral motivation is revealed in the first paragraph. Political and moral motivation is then again revealed in paragraphs five and six.
The political motivation and moral motivation for declaring the Emancipation Proclamation, in the first paragraph, is found in the statement,” All persons held as slaves within any State 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; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.” This statement by Lincoln is telling the Union, the Confederates and all people in the U.S., that slaves are now free in the South. The part that he talks about how they all will now “recognize” and follow this statement shows his moral motivation to abolish slavery. It is shown because of how he is declaring a law making slavery illegal and declaring that people now follow this law. This would cause it to mean that Lincoln does not consider the black people property and so to follow these laws and to not treat them as if they still were property leading the reader of this proclamation and Americans to see that Lincoln believes that black people deserve this right so much as to make it a point to say in the statement to follow the law. The...