Proclamation boosted a moral cause, but freedom had to wait

President Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation during the autumn of 1862 and it formally took effect 160 years ago this January.

When released to the public, the 719 word document made a bold social statement and provided a ceremonial source of hope and pride for abolitionists and people of color. But did it actually free any human beings from bondage?

The text states, effective as of the first day of the year 1863, “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.”

That’s an honorable and laudable enough statement. However, did Lincoln’s idealistic intentions have any jurisdiction and did it free all slaves in America?

The concept of slavery was not legislatively banned by governmental decree until the adoption of the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1865. Thus, constitutionally on a federal level, the forced labor of persons without compensation or pay for said labor, did not become a federal statutory criminal offense until that date. Furthermore, the Emancipation Proclamation itself does not lay out any specific penalties for those engaged in such acts.

Since the states where slavery was predominantly located had seceded from the Union, and were thus, at the time of issuance, not observing the laws of the United States, and as they saw themselves as their own separate and sovereign nation, Lincoln had no authority over them, and, as such, a proclamation issued by a foreign potentate exacted no validity within their country.

Had Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America, signed such a proclamation and it was later followed by an act of southern legislatures to declare slavery unconstitutional, then the preponderance of slaves in North America would have been free.

Very little land, and no complete state that had joined the Confederate States of America in rebellion against the United States, had been militarily captured by the armies of the U.S. at the time the proclamation was authorized. The document was, thus, unenforceable on an individual basis.

Lincoln believed, along with most legal scholars of the day, that since the Constitution nor any of its subsequent amendments granted the right nor laid out a procedure for states to leave the union, for them to do so was illegal. In his view, the people therein were still a part of the United States.

In that regard, the Emancipation Proclamation had great meaning, and certainly provided a picture of what the country would be like if it were reunited (which was not a military certainty at that time). But as an enforceable rule, until the states were back together again, it was, practically, irrelevant.

The most immediate effect it had came in its second clause, which authorized all those of color or who had been enslaved to join the armed forces of the Union Army and Navy. It asserted “such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.”

Regiments of states’ militias had been recruiting people of color since late summer 1862. But it was the Proclamation itself which truly legitimized them, and allowed for these brave and patriotic units such as the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, made famous in the 1989 movie, “Glory,” starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, to achieve great praise on the battlefield.

By the end of the war, 210,000 persons of color or former slaves had donned the uniform of the United States, including nearly 500 officially credited from the state of Iowa. That total comprised more than 10 percent of the Army and about twenty-five percent of the Navy serving the nation before surrender of the Confederate forces in April 1865. Lincoln, summing the value of their participation in the conflict said “Without the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the South would not have been won.”

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln 160 years ago this month, may not have freed anybody the day it was issued, but it served as a psychological boon, invoking a boost of morale to those enslaved and the abolitionists fighting to preserve the Union. Most importantly, it stated clearly from the leader of that Union, the intentions of its government on the issue of slavery should the war be won by the North.

Let us remember the promise of that document, and the encouragement such a statement of confidence in humanity can hold, as we face the challenges and decisions of the new year and into the next.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.