Emancipation Proclamation Dbq

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The Emancipation Proclamation was the federal action that ultimately freed the slaves and changed that narrative of the war, and was delivered on January 1, 1863. After nearly two full years of war, Union citizens were getting quite restless. The war was bogged down, and extremely bloody, and as a result both side suffered many causalities. As more and more sons, brothers, fathers, and friends were dying in the battlefield, the general feeling in the Union was to let the Confederacy have its independence. Lincoln recognized the animosity towards fighting the war, and realized he needed to give his countrymen a real reason to fight. Lincoln could see it in his soldiers as well. The North clearly had the military superiority over the Confederacy. …show more content…

The only reason the war wasn’t over already was because the South was fighting with purpose. As much as any battle, the Emancipation turned the tide of the war. Lincoln highlighted the moral wrongs of the evil of slavery, and created a humanitarian drive to overcome the Confederacy. This document also lead to the inclusion of African Americans against the Confederacy, a group of people that needs no explanation to why they were motivated to fight. However, this did not mean Lincoln believed in equality. A big part of his plan of emancipation included the Panama Plan, or starting a colony for the freed African Americans, and he did not believe African Americans could fit into a normally functioning society with the whites. Again, reiterating the fact this war was not about equality, even when the narrative switched to a war on slavery. The result, just over two years later, the Union forced General Robert E. Lee to surrender at the Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 and ended the American Civil

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