Lord Dunmore's Proclamation On Slave Emancipation

Are “all men created equal”? Why did the Constitution allow slavery to continue? The framers of the Constitution allowed slavery to continue because of political, economic, and social issues. They wanted their nation to be unified and the number of states to stay intact. They wanted to secure wealth and slavery was a great part of their economy. Therefore, freeing the slaves was not important. All men aren’t created equally as shown in these times.

The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the thirteen American colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would now regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these states formed a new nation – the United States of America . Upon this legislation became law, it allowed American citizens to live a betterment of life and execute their rights of liberty, freedom, and equality. The new United States would become the nation among all nations.

A question that has left many Americans puzzled is, was the civil was inevitable? Could the United States of America survived without the famous war? Would America be split in half? To answer this question one must look back and the reason the civil war happened and how it affected America.

In the revolutionary war slaves and their masters played an important role, which led towards the abolishment of slavery. After years, full of several tensions between the United States and Britain tensions erupted in the war of independence in February 1775, which would last till September 1783 (Conway,1). While the Americans fought for their freedom, the Slaves fought for their freedom as well. “African Americans fought a revolution within a revolution,” as Nash writes about the fight of the slaves. (266). The number of articles about the abolitions of slavery shows the change in the fight for abolition of slavery. Before the revolutionary war only a few articles were about the abolition of slavery. One of the most influential articles was from Thomas Paine, he writes “That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange.” With this sentence Paine shows how he does not understand the need for slavery. Even though there was already being spoken about the abolition of slavery, there were only a few articles about it before, while after the war there is an increase in the number of articles, showing that there is an increase in the fight for abolition of slavery after the war. The opportunities that the slaves had for freedom created these changes. The slaves had several options for freedom, one of them was fighting for the British, the other was fighting for the United States (Nash). While

American Revolution began in 1775. There were lots of events, which led to the America revolution. Till 1763, everything was going in favor of England. Majority of the Americas were in favor of British rule, and they were big supporter. They use to treat parliament and queen of England with full respect. Things begin to change around 1760s, when British parliament passed series of laws without the consultation of American people. The one such law in this series was Stamp act. The Stamp act was passed in 1765. Americans found this tax to be unconstitutional and disturbing because they believed that no freeman could be forced to pay the tax without his permission. Even Benjamin Franklin personally requested the British parliament to relook the

Thomas Jefferson always viewed slavery as a “moral depravity and a hideous blot.”(5) Jefferson felt it also was a great threat to the nation 's survival and opposing the laws of nature, which every person had the right liberty. When the American Revolution was taking place, Jefferson was connected with the legislation in hopes it result in abolishment of slavery. In his attempts to abolish slavery Jefferson drafted the Virginia law in 1778 “that prohibited the importation of enslaved Africans.”(6) In 1784 he also “proposed in an ordinance that would ban slavery in the Northwest territories.”(7) These were steps towards the abolishment of slavery, but for it to be successful it had to part of a democratic process Jefferson believed. It would take something like the Emancipation Proclamation to make his beliefs come true.

The Emancipation Proclamation is probably one of the most important documents in the history of the United States of America; in spite of that, it is also one of the most complicated and misunderstood. On January 1, 1863, as the United States approached its third year of brutal civil war, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation stated that “all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free,” this was within the rebellious states. The Emancipation Proclamation made the nation change views and affected various aspects of the United States.

When The Second Continental Congress approved of the Declaration of Independence, it purposefully avoided the complicated situation that was slavery. African Americans, both freed and enslaved, were outraged. How could the Founding Fathers write such a riveting and long document for themselves, while completely ignoring the African American struggle for freedom on the basis of skin tone? The hypocrisy was too much for Benjamin Banneker, who took it upon himself to write a letter to Thomas Jefferson about the atrocities of slavery, and persuade him to abolish the practice. In it, Banneker used allusions, a melancholy diction, and deductive reasoning to state his argument against the enslavement of his color.

In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was trying to free slaves in the Confederate States. “That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state of designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military

Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine are both considered to be founding fathers of the United States of America despite the fact that they both came from different backgrounds. Thomas Paine was born in Norfolk England, the son of Quaker and left school early to become his father’s apprentice. Thomas Jefferson was born in Colonial America in the colony of Virginia to a wealthy planter father and a mother from a distinguished family. He was given an extraordinary education and attended college earning a degree in law. As a young man Thomas Paine traveled in England constantly, working and pursuing many different ventures before emigrating to America in 1774. Thomas Jefferson was a scholar, constantly in pursuit of knowledge and inherited considerable wealth from his parents in Virginia. Both men shared similar ideals

The “Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators.” This allowed African American men to enlist in the Union army and “was among the most radical provisions” of the Emancipation Proclamation. The arming of black soldiers was just as controversial as the Proclamation itself because it recognized the black man as a man, they were more recognized than they had ever been before. Now legally able to participate in the war, this gave African American men motivation to fight for the Union army. While some may have already had motivations to fight, a lot of them had to be recruited by people such as Frederick Douglass, the most successful black recruiter whose own two of his own sons were in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts. The Emancipation also ensured that “slaves who enlisted would become free, as would their families, with the government paying monetary compensation to loyal owners.” This gave the men an important reason to enlist, as it would guarantee their freedoms as well as their

Allen Guelzo and Vincent Harding approached Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the eventual abolition of slavery from two very different viewpoints. The major disagreement between them is whether the slaves freed themselves, or Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation freed them. Harding argued the former view, Guelzo took the later. When these essays are compared side by side Guelzo’s is stronger because, unlike Harding, he was able to keep his own views of American race relations out of the essay and presented an argument that was based on more than emotion.

The development of slavery and self-government in the Americas from the colonial to the revolutionary period presents two main contradictions which are important not in setting the stage for the American Revolution but also help to establish division between the colonies after the Revolution leading into the Civil War. While one contradiction applies exclusively to the Northern colonies, the other applies to all the colonies and is a key factor leading up to the American Revolution.

The words of Thomas Jefferson from the Declaration of Independence marked the beginning of a nation, and the birth of the United States of America. The basis of the Declaration was based on the idea of freedom, where “all men are created equal.” However, by today’s standards, the Declaration of Independence has many controversial points. One of them concerns the topic over slavery, where there have been many disagreements between the current interpretations and the views of our founding fathers hundreds of years ago.

Somebody once remarked, “No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent” (“Abraham Lincoln Quotes"). At the initial view, the Civil War was going to be won by the South. Nonetheless, all that changed when Abraham Lincoln constructed the Emancipation Proclamation because it did not solely free slaves, it further altered antiquity for the salutary and assisted the North in the war, which led to their triumph. The Emancipation Proclamation was Abraham Lincoln’s greatest achievement as president.