Emancipation Proclamation Dbq

The Emancipation Proclamation was a big turning point in the history of America. It started the transformation of slavery to freedom for all people. It may not have been a fast change, but you need to start somewhere, and the Emancipation Proclamation was that somewhere. During the 1800’s, there was a huge war fighting for the freedom of slaves. This was called the American Civil War. The war lasted 4 years, from April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865. During this timeframe about 620,000 people died in the war. But a war wasn’t going to stop slavery, the U.S. needed a law to help it. The law required was called the Emancipation Proclamation. This law would start the revolutionary time where all men and women are treated equal. The Emancipation Proclamation was a document that gave freedom to most of the nation’s slaves. Over 3 million men, women, and children in 10 states would acquire freedom. President Abraham Lincoln spent several hours on the day of the signing, January 1, 1863, before put pen to paper and signed this revolutionary document. “On Jan. 1, 1863, after several hours spent greeting visitors, the president set his pen to the Emancipation Proclamation, thus declaring

This excludes union-occupied areas of Louisiana and Virginia as well. Many abolitionist highly criticized the compromises, but they highly preferred the clause in the proclamation that welcomed slaves into the Union army. The Freedmen, as they were called, help the army, which has suffered numerous casualties, had greatly increased the man power and fire power. More than 186,000 former slaves had join the Union army by the end of the war. In paragraph 6 of The Slow End of Slavery, it states,”More than 50,000 black men joined the union army in 1863; by the end of the war, 186,000 - one of every five black men under 45 - would