WEBVTT - How the Emancipation Proclamation Worked 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.720 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:18.000 I'm editor Candis Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath Taylor, Jane. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.880 When you think about presidential speeches are really any speech 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.520 in general, there's essentially two different types of appeals that 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:27.480 you can make to the members of an audience. You 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.440 can make a path that's appeals and you're appealing to 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.600 someone's emotions, or you can make an ethos appeal and 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.920 you're appealing to someone's morality and in sense of ethics 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:38.840 is from my rhetoric class. Yeah, yeah. I I took 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.600 speech writing my senior year of college spring semester, thinking 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.279 it would try to be a snooze and it'd be, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.240 you know, a way to pass the time until I graduated, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:47.920 And it turned out to be a really tough class, 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.280 so it wasn't my favorite. I loved rhetoric, Yeah yeah, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.200 And obviously I I've learned a lot about speech, judging 0:00:55.280 --> 0:01:02.640 from my lofty annunciation and vocabulary. But the point being, um, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.240 a couple of different presidents throughout history seems to have 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.080 preferred one method or another depending on the circumstances, and 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.880 there's some pretty memorable ones that speak to each of 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.800 these different types of um delivery. I think about the 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.800 Berlin Wall speech, which we've had a podcast about before, 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.399 when Kennedy said that he was a Berliner, or as 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.120 some people have misinterpreted, he was a deadly donut. That 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.320 definitely made a huge emotional appeal to people of Berlin, say, 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:30.920 I'm one of you. But when you kind of something 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.720 like ethos and appealing to someone's sense of morality, you 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.960 think about someone like Abraham Lincoln. Definitely Gettysburg address maybe, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.319 and that one even I think had a bit of 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.880 an emotional residence to it too. But one of the 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:50.600 most ethical proclamations he made was the Emancipation Proclamation. That's true, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.760 and it's pretty interesting, uh, in contrast to the Gettysburg Address. 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.200 It was it was very legal, it was a legal 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.840 document and it was a military top actic basically, and uh, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:04.840 but like you said, it did appeal to morality at 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:06.720 the same time, So there is that contrast in it. 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.320 And if you read the Emancipation Proclamation, which we're not 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:11.880 going to do for you because I think it was 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.959 a very few lines through, it really has a bunch 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.239 of legal lads, and it's seven hundred words long, and 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.320 it actually didn't free any slaves at all, that's right, 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.040 and UH people say that, you know, it was kind 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.920 of unnecessary because there were congressional acts that were already 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.280 in place that that said that they that whatever um 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:36.720 slaves that the Northern UH troops encounter, they would free 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.800 if they um if they conquered that area. Right, So 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.200 essentially they set up the president that because slaves were property, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.359 if the Union troops came in and conquered the area, 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.880 then they acquired all the property, the slaves being part 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.760 of that, and they would be free forever. And Lincoln 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.600 said from the beginning to his cabinet and his advisors 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.079 he wasn't going to try to free the slaves because 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.120 you know, the country was in such a state of 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.920 up people already. In His biggest concern was, you know, uh, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.560 getting the succeeded south the Confederacy to come back to 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:11.200 the Union. And the cabinet had at least some support 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.160 for the idea of gradual emancipation, that this would be 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.560 something that could be you know, slowly handed out over time, 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.480 which is almost like I have to mention him, of course, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.200 almost like the idea of Thomas Jefferson had in the 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.560 day about slavery, that eventually the institution would work its 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.680 way out. But Lincoln one day, he was actually on 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.720 the way to the War Secretary's infant's son's funeral, and 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:36.320 he was writing in a carriage with some of his 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.440 top confidants, and he said, you know what I'm gonna 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.560 do it. I'm going to set the slaves free. But 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.880 he did it in such a shrewd and calculated way 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.040 that it really clashes in my mind that the image 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.760 I've always had of Lincoln, which is this top hat wearing, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.760 scraggly bearded, sort of droopy eyed, sad somber man. He 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.840 was quite a politician with us, that's true, and it 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.000 sort of was in the face of most people's ideal 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.400 image of of Lincoln in terms of someone who was 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.480 out for the slaves from the beginning. Like like you said, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.800 coming back to your point, he didn't start this war 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.000 with the intent of ending slavery in the South, and uh, 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.600 he was against slavery, but um, like you said, he 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.280 wanted to preserve the Union first and foremost, and he 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:22.800 actually uh stumbled into this situation because it was a 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:27.040 great military tactic to use, and he actually calculated Lee 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.159 used the time of immediately after the Antietam the Battle 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.760 of Antietam, which happened to be the bloodiest war in 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.839 the Civil War, and the bloodies battle, excuse me and um. 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:42.480 And so after this happened, you know, the country is suffering. Obviously, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.200 people are wondering what are we fighting about after all, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:49.120 you know, and it's it's fairly confusing when what caused 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.520 the war, and it's not exactly slavery that caused in 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.520 the first place. So when Lincoln uh put out the 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.880 Emancipation Proclamation, it really focused everyone's mind on slavery itself. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.000 It did. It boiled down the cause of the war 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.839 to slavery, and Lincoln was advised by the Secretary of 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:11.040 State WILLIAMS. Steward not to deliver the proclamation until the 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.640 Union had had a victory, because in his mind, he 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.200 thought it would look like the Union was claiming defeat 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.840 to the world. And it's important to remember that at 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.960 this time the South was still getting support, sort of 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.760 surreptitious support, albeit from France and England. So the Union 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:29.560 wanted to make sure that Europe and the rest of 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.640 the world knew it was still strong and it's right, 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:33.960 and I stumbled across that and it made me think, like, 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.760 why would these international powers support the South in the 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.160 first place. And it's interesting because it was a lot 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.960 about trade because obviously the South controlled the cotton and yeah, 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.960 and actually it wasn't a two distant memory that you know, 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.320 the Second War of Independence, the War of eighteen twelve, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.679 it happened, and so they were still kind of hostile 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.640 towards the United States at that time. And also, um 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.400 there was there were questions and hostilities about the Canadian 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.159 border even more recently than that. So England was very 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.279 quickly jump on board to the South. But when when 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.600 the war became about slavery, they couldn't do that anymore, right, 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.240 because they had decried slavery in their own country several 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.839 several years ago, and so they couldn't possibly be on 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.680 board with a country. It's important to remember at this 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.720 time that the Confederacy was its own country essentially, at 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.760 least they consider themselves that. And we should note that 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.680 before the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered on January one, eight 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.520 sixty three, that's when it was laid down into law. Supposedly, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.280 there was a preliminary one that came out on September 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:39.040 eighteen sixty two, and in this version, Lincoln was trying 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.040 to give the Confederacy a chance to rejoin the Union 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.680 and as a gift with purchase, I guess they could 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:47.400 keep their slaves as long as they came back to 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.200 the Union. He would work that out later on, but 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.440 none of the Confederate states hopped on board. There were 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.240 a couple of individual landowners who wanted to sign these 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.240 sort of one on one loyalty packs, but Lincoln he 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.640 wasn't buying that. Yeah, it's interesting. This document goes down 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.240 in history is like, oh, it freed the slaves and 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.320 free the slaves at the same time, Like, man, what 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.400 was Lincoln doing here? He was he was giving the 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.960 South and out. He was like, you can keep your slaves. 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:12.840 That's what the document was saying. You can keep them, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.960 and it'll be fine if you rejoin now, if you 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.680 lay down your arms. And the reason there was such 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.120 opposition to this, at least in the cabinet, was that 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.680 they feared there'd be a total massacre and utter pandemonium 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.920 in the South if the slaves were freed. I guess 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:28.680 they thought that they would, you know, wipe out the 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.440 plantation owners and then they would storm up north and 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.040 take all the Northerners jobs. And racism was just as 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.960 prevalent in the North as it was in the South, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.360 and there were some who even postulated that the war 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.400 was a conspiracy and all the northern soldiers were being killed, 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.360 said that the freed slaves to come up to the 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.200 north and take their jobs, and that's helped to spur 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.240 their draft rights at the time, right exactly. But you 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.640 know that the irony behind this was that even if 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.920 the Emancipation Proclamation had freed all the slaves and it 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.480 had accomplished that goal, you have to think about the 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.120 way that information was disseminated at this time. It's not 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.640 like we had SENNA, and it's not like we had NPR. 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:07.800 It took a while for the news to get out, 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.240 and in some cases at some plantations, in places like 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.160 the floor keys or even in Texas, the slaves didn't 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.280 hear the news until well after Lincoln's assassination, that's right, 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.560 and that's where we get the idea of June teenth. Uh. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.360 It was a date where June nineteenth, I should say 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.040 nineteen sixty five was the date that slaves in Texas 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.520 actually first short of emancipation proclamation, and so that's when 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:34.000 Texas actually celebrates that date. And when you look at 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.000 the order in which the slave I'm sorry, the states 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.320 let go of the institution of slavery, you'll see them. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.600 The border states really were some of the last two, uh, 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.880 losing their grip on the institution, that's right. And they 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.720 were left out of the proclamation, right, it didn't apply 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.120 to them at all, right, And that was another political move. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.000 Lincoln knew that his hold on Congress was pretty tenuous, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.160 and he feared that he would polarize the Republican Party 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.720 and and lose all the Republicans support if he continued 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:04.600 to put this idea of emancipating the slaves. And really, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:10.079 if if you listen to the detractors behind the emancipation proclamations, 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:14.000 criticism it was illegal. He was acting far out of 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.760 his jurisdiction if you uphold the fact that the Confederacy 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.480 was its own country at this time. And in our 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.559 article about the immense patient proclamation on how stuff works, 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.079 the author uses this really great analogy she said it 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.480 would be like the United States saying to France, you 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.520 have to outlaw smoking. We don't really have the authority 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.960 to say that to another country. And so Democrats and 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:36.920 Republicans who were really trying to follow the Constitution to 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.240 the letter, told Lincoln you can't do this, that's right, 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.640 And Lincoln actually violated the Constitution. Some say, uh in 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.840 many different ways. He withold habeas corpus and and stuff 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.840 like this, but he sort of um hid behind the 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.959 idea that these were military tactics, and uh, you know, 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.480 to this day like and as a hero um to 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.400 most people in this country, and they defend him in 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.040 these acts because they were military time optics. But back then, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.520 I don't think he's satisfied a lot of people for 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:08.199 the proclamation. The abolitionists wanted complete freedom of all slaves, 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.000 and then the plantation owners, of course wanted to keep 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.840 holding on to their their workers. So he didn't why either, 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:16.920 he didn't satisfy anyone. It's like he was trying to 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.280 walk such a straight line that both sides just completely 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.240 scoffed to him. And then of course, you know, like 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:23.680 we already mentioned, they were the conspiracies from the Northerners 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.800 that thought all the slaves were just being sent up 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.520 north to take over their lives. Right. But one aspect 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.760 of this that was really brilliant, and it actually had 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.239 a great immediate effect, was the fact that um, black soldiers, 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.680 freed slaves would uh would join the north and become soldiers. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:41.480 And there was about a hundred and eighty thousand I 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.240 believe that joined after the proclamation was declared, and the 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.440 proclamation made it explicitly clear that freed slaves, or I 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.720 guess all blacks in general, could join the armed forces. 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.199 And I think that people were suspicious of their efforts 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.199 at first, but they really proved themselves. I mean, obviously 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.520 this was a cause that they were perhaps the cloist too. 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.880 So um, we know also when we look at the 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.600 Emancipatient Proclamation that it's, like we said, it's a bunch 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.520 of legal lease. But one of the boldest things about it, 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.360 if you really get down to the language, is that 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.120 it's written in present tense, and some of the drafts 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.360 that Lincoln had made of the proclamation were written in 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.080 future tense. But he reasoned, no, I want this to 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.200 be immediate. I wanted to be prescient, and I want 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.880 people to really stand up and pay attention. And if 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.360 you think about it, that really would have grabbed people's attention, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.560 you know, hearing slavery spoken of as an institution of 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.640 the past, it's not the future. That's kind of nebulous. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.920 It may never happen, right, right, But perhaps the biggest 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.959 ripple effect from the Emancipatient Proclamation was that it dealt 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.800 a severe blow to the Southern psyche because for the 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.880 first time, poor white people in the South started to 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.800 realize that their family members and their sons and themselves 0:11:55.160 --> 0:12:00.200 were dying so that wealthy white landowners could continue to build. 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:02.960 And they if they didn't hold slaves, they don't have 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.520 a stake in this. They might be anti slavery even 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.720 or you know, get behind the cell for other reasons 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.160 and the like the rights of the States reasons, but 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.960 now after them based in proclamation, it's all about slavery. 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.440 It really is. It really is, like we said, an 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.800 incredibly shrewd move. So it took a while for these 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.840 effects to take hold in the United States, and then 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.280 after the Civil War was over, we know that things 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.880 didn't exactly work out smoothly from there. On out. When 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.640 Andrew Johnson came into office after lincoln'ssassination, he was sharply 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.440 criticized for being too lenient on the Confederate's day because 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:35.679 he was just trying to you know, piece the Union 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.600 back together as Lincoln would have wanted, and again harsh 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.680 criticism from his detractors. And if we look at what 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.680 happened to the slaves after they were freed, we see 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.800 it's still not a pretty story at all constitutionally speaking either. Yeah, 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.120 that's right. They were contraband camps, I believe, I mean, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.200 these were these were camps that were meant to to 0:12:54.360 --> 0:13:00.800 protect the slaves uh near um northern forts, but at 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.160 the time, like it ended up being not the greatest 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.319 place to live, you know, these contraband camps, and it 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.160 ended up giving them not a very good living at 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.520 all at all. And when we look at the laws 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.400 that were passed in order to protect the newly freed slaves, 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.440 we have the thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished slavery, but 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.560 it didn't give them citizenship. Then the fourteenth it prevented 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.480 states from holding out on slaves rights without due process, 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.080 and then the fifteenth gave all the free slaves voting rights, 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:29.760 and we know about the gym crow laws that we 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.760 followed and stut and the absurd tests that blacks would 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.719 be made to undergo at voting and polling stations. And 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:43.280 so they weren't completely assimilated into the American mainstream until 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.480 well after the civil rights movements. It was a long, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.800 painful process, but at least the proclamation started. Yeah, and 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.880 we may have vested your view of the Emancipation Proclamation 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.040 and maybe of Lincoln. Maybe now when you think of him, 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.600 you won't think of him as the sad dide wartime president, 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:03.640 but you'll think of him as a very shrewd political 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.640 I know that my opinion has been changed to him. 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.600 And you can read even more about Lincoln and the 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:10.960 Civil War and the families that were torn apart by 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:15.600 the battle on how stuff works dot com for more 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.280 on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how stuff 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.560 works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:30.800 an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.