What was the congressional level of support for Emancipation Proclamation?
Upvote:0
The reason no such bill was brought forward was that the sense of the country was that Congress did not have the power to do any such thing. Congress did not have the power to force the states to free slaves. It did have the power to free slaves it "its own" area of the District - with compensation, and of course it was a Republican plank that Congress had the power to limit slavery in the Federal Territories.
What Congress did in 1865 was entirely different - it started the process of creating an amendment that ended Slavery. The states would have to ratify that Amendment before it took effect.
Lincoln based his right to free slaves as a "War Powers" issue. He was given extended powers over the war zone as Commander in Chief. When his generals trod on the slavery question he overruled them for policy reasons rather than that of right. A general can, for example, break up a barn for wood to build a bridge for war purposes. So likewise the Commander in Chief might need to confiscate the slaves in the war area to win the war. This was the power that backed the Emancipation Proclamation.
As the war drew to a close, the 13th Amendment was pushed as a way to permanently solve any issue about the relevance of the EP to a post war nation, or the justification of this use of War Powers. Once this was passed then the issue was settled constitutionally and for good.
Upvote:4
Lincoln first informed his cabinet in July of 1862 that he had decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the rebellious states but which left slavery in tact in the border states, as a punitive measure to hurt the Confederate war effort.
Lincoln's cabinet was made up of more tenured leaders of the Republican party than himself, a party founded on the platform to abolish slavery. So these self proclaimed abolitionists should have welcomed Lincoln's impending executive order. At least one would have thought. None of Lincoln's cabinet supported the Presidential order and all argued strongly against it. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase was against, afraid Lincoln's punitive and limited abolition in the Southern rebellious states might lead to universal emancipation, saying that “it goes beyond anything that I have recommended.”
Secretary of State William H. Seward gave an impassioned speech warning that “foreign nations will intervene to prevent the abolition of slavery for sake of cotton.” Postmaster-General (yes that was a cabinet position back then) Montgomery Blair, was against it, saying that it would cost the administration the fall elections. Still others were against it because they believed Lincoln did not possess the authority.
In the end Lincoln's cabinet, particularly Secretary of State William Seward, persuaded him to postpone based upon a more pragmatic argument. “Postpone its issue, until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war! (McClellan’s failed Peninsula Campaign)”. Lincoln would wait for a battlefield victory and use the Emancipation Proclamation as a follow up blow – the first on the field of battle, the second on the fields of the plantations. ( from Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin).
September 1862, after the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln announced his intent to the nation.... Lincoln then formalized and signed the presidential order the Emancipation Proclamation, Jan 1 1863.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was necessary firstly because The Emancipation Proclamation (executive order), was likely to be declared null and void if the rebellion ended and a Supreme Court in more settled times considered the ramifications of Lincoln's unilateral and unsanctioned by congress act, along with the rest of his usurped wartime powers. It was possible Emancipation Proclamation could be repealed by a stoke of a single pen by a future President elected potentially with Southern votes in a post war Union. Finally, because the Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln signed did not end slavery in the United States, but only in the rebellious Southern states. Slavery still existed at the end of the war in the border states which had not rebelled including: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia. For those states the 13th amendment is what ended slavery, not the Emancipation Proclamation.
More post
- 📝 Would League of Nations and U.S. sanctions/trade embargo against 1930's Germany had notable consequences in Germany?
- 📝 What does 'a long train' mean in the Declaration of Independence
- 📝 Why Oppress a Negligible Population (Stolen Generations)?
- 📝 Was there a bribery attempt by the UK to get the Ottomans to switch sides in World War I?
- 📝 Why are Mary I, Mary II and Anne not as famous as Elizabeth I, Victoria and Elizabeth II?
- 📝 When did civilians in Europe gain access to breech-loaded firearms?
- 📝 What prevented the Mongolian Empire from expanding into Europe?
- 📝 What was the attitude of Mongols to conquered peoples?
- 📝 Were there any potential areas around Smolensk that Army Group Center might have found as defensible as the Rzhev line?
- 📝 What triggered the acceleration in human advancement?
- 📝 What happened to the North Saxons?
- 📝 What do historians do when there are no sources?
- 📝 Where can I find historical taxation/revenue datasets for imperial countries in the early 20th century?
- 📝 Why did the Rhodesian Army lack the rank of General?
- 📝 How were the Morisco refugees from Europe received in North Africa, given that they were foreigners and Christian?
- 📝 Identification of the dagger/mini sword which has been in my family for as long as I can remember (and I am 80 years old)
- 📝 What's the story behind Allahabad's name?
- 📝 How was Martin Luther King Jr. viewed by white Americans at the time?
- 📝 Was Swastika a universally-recognized symbol of fascism as early as 1925?
- 📝 Discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland pre-1968
- 📝 What lands have been called by names chosen to disassociate those lands from its inhabitants
- 📝 What happened to the holders of German war bonds after WW1?
- 📝 Were the English behind the creation of Belgium?
- 📝 How many German expellees returned to the Hungarian People's Republic?
- 📝 Were there originally seats in the elevators in the Eiffel Tower?
- 📝 Which fortress east of Ancient Megiddo did Thutmose III go to during the siege?
- 📝 German 10 zehn heller
- 📝 Can you help me identify this Italian Royal Army Uniform?
- 📝 When did the Nuu-Chah-Nulth stop whaling?
- 📝 What happened to the stuff stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was the congressional level of support for Emancipation Proclamation?
- 📝 In general, what was the level of technology like in central Africa, just before the scramble for Africa?
- 📝 What was the basis for the Nazis to support various ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union and elsewhere over the majority populations?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What did the Emancipation Proclamation exactly do?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
- 📝 What was the economic basis for West Berlin?
- 📝 What was the planned line of succession for the Nazi Party in the event that Hitler died?
- 📝 What was the 1970s name for skinny jeans?
- 📝 What was it like for a coastal village to experience a Viking raid in around the tenth century?
- 📝 What was the original process for becoming a US citizen?
- 📝 What was the motivation for the Gregorian Calendar?
- 📝 From 1936-45 what was the prescribed punishment in Nazi Germany for failing to join or participate in the Hitler Youth?
- 📝 What was the impetus for some African nations to participate in the slave trade?
- 📝 What was the reason for the Ottoman empire to adopt the crescent moon as its flag/coat of arms?
- 📝 What was the basis for valuating large territorial purchases by USA?
- 📝 What was the actual cause of the disaster for the Royal Navy’s battlecruisers in the Battle of Jutland?
- 📝 What was the penalty for disobeying flu safety regulations in the 1918 epidemic?
- 📝 What was the primary motivation for a historical figure like Xenophon to create an extensive collection of written material?
- 📝 What was the timetable for Germany's Invasion of the Low Countries (Fall Gelb) in WW2?
- 📝 What was the reason for inflation in Britain after the Black Death?
- 📝 What was the argument for the Japanese pursuing the Northern Expansion Doctrine during WWII?
- 📝 What was the ancient Egyptian word for "soldier"?
- 📝 What was the first recorded instance of sex or violence being inappropriate for children to see?
- 📝 What was the purpose for Kaiser Wilhelm's visit to Jerusalem?
- 📝 What kind of wood was the standard decking for aircraft carriers in World War 2?
- 📝 What evidence support the theory that the killing of unwanted children was practiced in ancient Athens?
- 📝 What was the typical range of travel of a Pennsylvanian resident for everyday life in the late 18th early 19th Century Pennsylvania?
- 📝 Was there Western tactical air support during the Battle for Berlin?