Focus
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave under the authority of the Federal government, e.g., the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, or Missouri. What did it accomplish? What did Frederick Douglass think about the Emancipation Proclamation at the time and then in retrospect? On emancipation, Lincoln moved too slowly for the radicals and abolitionists and too fast for the Democrats. How would you assess Lincoln’s actions?
Readings
- Fornieri, The Language of Liberty
- Letter to O.H. Browning (September 22, 1861)
- Letter to James A. McDougal (March 14, 1862)
- Letter to the Senate & House of Representatives (April 16, 1862)
- Proclamation Revoking General Hunter’s Order of Military Emancipation (May 9, 1862)
- Appeal to Border State Representatives to Favor Compensated Emancipation (July 12, 1862)
- Letter to Horace Greeley (August 22, 1862)
- Reply to Emancipation Memorial Presented by Chicago Christians of All Denominations (September 13, 1862)
- Annual Message to Congress (December 1, 1862)
- Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation &Final Emancipation Proclamation(September 22, 1862 and January 1, 1863)
- Letter to General N.P. Banks (August 5, 1863)
- Letter to James C. Conkling (August 26, 1863)
- Letter to Governor Michael Hahn (March 13, 1864)
- Address at a Sanitary Fair in Baltimore (April 18, 1864)
- Letter to Henry W. Hoffman (October 10, 1864)
- Annual Message to Congress (December 6, 1864)
- Letter to Governor Andrew Johnson (March 26, 1863)
- Lincoln, Order of Retaliation
- Lincoln, To Stephen A. Hulburt
- Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Introduction and Chapters 1-5
- Frederick Douglass, “Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln” (April 14, 1876)
Supplemental/Optional Readings:
- Lucas E. Morel, “Forced into Gory Lincoln Revisionism”
- Don E. Fehrenbacher, “Only His Stepchildren: Lincoln & the Negro”
- James M. McPherson, “The ‘Glory’ Story”