history

PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS 1. What practices, institutions, and organizations did former slaves develop to facilitate their transition to freedom? How successful were the freed people, and what challenges did they face?

2. What factors resulted in the defeat of Reconstruction? Was it inevitable, or might things have turned out differently had any of these circumstances been different? Explain.

3. What kinds of opportunities did former slaves seek in the North and West? How did they attempt to realize their dreams? What obstacles did they have to overcome?

4. Should we judge Reconstruction on its initial promise or its ultimate failure? What is your assessment of this period? Read the Text from page 294- Summarize the reading in a 2-paragraph essay on the Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation Abraham Lincoln fully understood the military and political advantages that freeing fugitive slaves and employing them as military labor and support personnel gave the Union cause. He was also aware that recasting the war as a fight against slavery could have diplomatic benefits. In Great Britain especially, where antislavery sentiment was strong, a war aim of ending slavery would enhance the political and moral weight of the Union’s cause. It would also seriously undercut the Confederacy’s push for diplomatic recognition in Europe. Through the middle of 1862, Lincoln publicly continued his cautious, pragmatic approach to the question of slavery and the status of refugee slaves. Yet he was privately making plans to take a bolder step. On July 22, he surprised his cabinet by announcing his intention to free all the slaves of those in rebellion against the Union. This act would be a military proclamation issued under his authority as commander in chief. At the suggestion of one of his cabinet members, however, Lincoln agreed to withhold the announcement until after a Union victory on the battlefield, so as not to appear desperate or beholden in any way to the fugitive slaves or to abolitionist pressure. The Union victory on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, gave Lincoln the occasion he needed. Union forces repelled a Confederate offensive, and General Robert E. Lee’s army retreated back into Virginia. The victory proved significant, not only for reversing Union military fortunes but also for dissuading Britain from recognizing the Confederacy. Five days later, on September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. This proclamation gave the Confederates one hundred days — until January 1, 1863 — to cease their rebellion. If they did not, all their slaves would be freed on that date. The proclamation drew its authority from the additional article of war approved in March 1862 and the Second Confiscation Act. The proclamation-maintained Lincoln’s two-pronged approach to the problem of slavery: compensation and colonization. It recommended that Congress offer loyal slave states monetary assistance to enable them to adopt gradual or immediate emancipation plans. It also offered continued support for the colonization of freed people outside the United States. The Confederacy scorned the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and no person or state ceased its rebellion. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the final Emancipation Proclamation. (See Document Project: Wartime and Emancipation, pp. 312–21.) This proclamation referenced the preliminary one, with its determination to free the slaves in states or parts of states still in rebellion against the United States as of January 1, and listed the regions in which the slaves “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Consistent with Lincoln’s cautious and pragmatic approach to the war and his strenuous efforts to maintain the loyalty of those within the Union who still had slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation had clear and functional limits. It did not free the enslaved in places that the Union had actual control over: the border states, pro-Union areas within the Confederacy, and former Confederate areas under Union control. Furthermore, the proclamation said nothing about compensation or colonization, only that military and naval authorities would recognize and maintain the freedom of “said persons,” who were urged “to abstain from all violence” and to “labor faithfully for reasonable wages.” Finally, it declared that “such persons of suitable condition” were to be “received into the armed service.” Lincoln ended the proclamation with an invocation: “Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.” The war to save the Union thus officially also became a war to free the slaves. It was clear that now, when the Union was restored, it would be a nation of free people, a nation in which slavery would not exist. In the North, blacks and their allies ardently embraced the Emancipation Proclamation. At the grand celebration on January 1, 1863, at the Israel Bethel AME Church in Washington, D.C., Pastor Henry McNeal Turner witnessed a community overcome with joy: “Men squealed, women fainted, dogs barked, white and colored people shook hands, songs were sung…. Great processions of colored and white men marched to and from and passed in front of the White House and congratulated President Lincoln on his proclamation…. It was indeed a time of times, and a half time, nothing like it will ever be seen again in this life.”16

For blacks in captured Confederate territory now under Union control, the Emancipation Proclamation celebrations also were widespread, joyous, and hopeful. In Hampton, Virginia, members of the large free black community that had grown up around Fortress Monroe gathered for a reading of the proclamation. They met under a large tree — now known as the Emancipation Oak and still standing on the campus of Hampton University — where a school for former slaves had been conducted since 1861 by Mary S. Peake. In the South Carolina Sea Islands, the high point of the long celebration was unplanned. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an abolitionist from Massachusetts and commander of the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, received a Union flag for his unit, which was composed of former slaves. As he received the flag, the freed people burst into a spontaneous rendition of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” “It was a touching and beautiful incident, and sent a thrill through all our hearts,” recalled Charlotte Forten.17 Slaves under Confederate control who got word of the Emancipation Proclamation kept their responses secret so as not to enrage Confederates and provoke retaliation. Many masters worked hard to prevent word of the proclamation from reaching their slaves, some even relocating their operations to more isolated or more secure Confederate areas, where plantation life continued as usual. The former Texas slave Felix Haywood recalled, “The War didn’t change nothin’. ” In fact, he said, “sometimes you didn’t knowed it was goin’ on. It was the endin’ of it that made the difference.”18Nevertheless, news of emancipation continued to spread as Union forces advanced. While the proclamation did not immediately free any slaves still under Confederate control, it transformed the conflict by making emancipation a central war aim, linking emancipation with Union victory. Outside the United States,emancipation was applauded in Britain and France, and it ended Confederate hopes for European diplomatic recognition.