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
- 📝 Reichsmark value
- 📝 Why was Lithuania not colonized by Soviet Union?
- 📝 Why didn't Indonesians/Indian Ocean traders bring marsupials to Asia and placental mammals to Australia/New Guinea?
- 📝 Can anyone identify my great grandfather's military uniform?
- 📝 What do historians infer about the world view of the ancient Egyptians based on the prophecy of Neferty?
- 📝 How did people ensure that renaissance Papal election bribery was honored?
- 📝 Did Jaques Chirac say “Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [rate] power”?
- 📝 Valid source of Greek historical periods , in a URL
- 📝 Around 1750, How many Native Americans (if any) spent the winter in the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan?
- 📝 What did the word "leisure" mean in late 18th Century usage?
- 📝 Can you tell me the name and location of post war camp in the Netherlands
- 📝 What would the style of wanted posters be in 1500's
- 📝 What is this sword?
- 📝 How large were the East India Company armed forces?
- 📝 Who were the traders involved in the triangular slave trade in France?
- 📝 When was the last time (if ever) an elector was faithless in US presidential elections?
- 📝 What factors contributed to the rise of national monarchies in the high middle ages?
- 📝 Was World War I a war of liberals against authoritarians?
- 📝 Why wasn't Federal Republic of Central America a stable country?
- 📝 In Dutch history two people are referred to as "William III"; are there any more cases where this happens?
- 📝 Why did the Siege of Ceuta (1694-1720) take so long?
- 📝 What is this war machine shown on Trajan's column?
- 📝 What was said about Vermont in the Paris negotiations of 1782?
- 📝 How did the Chinese help Khrushchev?
- 📝 What's the festival shown in this illustration?
- 📝 Was there any separation between hunting bow technology and weapon bows?
- 📝 Can the Largest Infantry Polearms be Wielded by Cavalry?
- 📝 Is the ancient altar with petroglyphs at the foot of Jabal Maqla Mt. Sinai?
- 📝 What was the difference in taxation amounts before and after the American Revolution?
- 📝 Why were the Marines so badly outnumbered at the critical point at Guadalcanal?
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?