Friday, November 2, 2012

Power of the Proclamation

We have already discussed the idea that the Emancipation changes the course of the Civil War--from a war to preserve the Union to a war to abolish slavery.

BUT, by the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, the idea of slavery seemed to take a new form.  Confederates believed that they were political slaves to the Union's oppressive government.  At the same time, Union soldiers would willingly seize fugitive slaves as contraband, which, to an extent, acknowledges the concept of slaves as property.

There is no denying that the Emancipation was at least one of the fulcrums that shifted the balance of power and strength between the Union and the Confederacy.  But if it doesn't end slavery, then why is it so pivotal?  Consider not only what we've already discussed, but other items that this particular article teaches us...

11 comments:

  1. The proclamation was pivotal not only for stating the slow abolishment of slavery but was also important because it changed the course of the war for both sides. One interesting that the article states it that the slaves gave the UNion valuable Confederate military information because they felt obligated to owe service to their "liberators". The Union even started to utilize black troops to increase numbers in the militias. Both o these two things benefited the Union and the results of the proclamation may earned them victory by giving them an edge at this stage of the war. Also, by putting out the proclamation other world powers may have been more inclined to side with the Union because they opposed slavery and supported the idea of abolishing it in America.

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  2. I think that when everyone thinks of the emancipation proclamation, they think that it was the North being the good guys but is that the whole truth? the whole world was watching this war and many nations had already abolished slavery or were close to do so. so the question is now, what side would benefit the most from releasing the slaves. the south would benefit because as the article said if the south were to abolish slavery then the northern abolitionist would protest the war, until they went back on that but thats war i guess. the North, if they stopped slavery, would gain allies in Europe and they would help the war effect. so the abolishment of slavery was more of a tactic in the war rather then a good moral thing the north did.

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  3. I believe that the emancipation proclamation altered all of American history. It goes without saying the weight that this one thing carried. We mentioned a lot about the abolition of slaves in class. But what I truly found interesting was how the emancipation proclamation altered the course of the war. The article quotes, "nearly 200,000 blacks served in the union army." That just amazed me. Think about the advantage that this gave the north. The article also mentioned how this action made the confederacy erratic which just fueled the fire.

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  4. Lincoln was a pragmatist, and he realized that the most pragmatic thing to do was to declare to the world that slavery must be abolished. It helped propel the Union army to victory with the influx of slaves that joined it after the proclamation, and helped crush any hope the South had of receiving recognition from Britain.

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  5. I, like Dave, was also surprised when I saw that a fifth of a million black people fought in the Civi War, and that this was a very large number which could have proved advantageous for the North.
    In terms of taking slaves as contraband, I think was just the only way that the Northerners could free slaves.
    The Emancipation Proclamation may then have been issued strategically rather than based on morality.

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  6. The proclamation clearly benefited the Union. This caused many freed slaves to flee to the North and they felt obligated to fight for the Union. One fifth of a million black men fought in the war,so to have the majority of that number on your side is clearly an advantage. This also totally changed the war, not for the better. I believe this cause the confederacy to fight harder with a bigger reward. It was their mindset that believed that they wold be able to get these slaves back and begin to regain the lives they did pre-war. As the proclamation benefited the Union in a direct way, emotionally I think it benefited the South.

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  7. Since I red this article, it is finally clearer to me why Lincoln made the Emancipation proclamation of slavery in states he didn't even had control about. The for the Union positive effect was that the slaves in the south now started to escape towards the north which made the Southerners loose a lot of laborers and therefor money, and forced them to act against these runaways. The text talks about a whole troupes, specialized for trapping escaping slaves. In some cases, the slaves even fought against their masters when they freed themselves rather than just running, and that all weakend the South from its middle.

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  8. The Emancipation Proclamation catalyzed the future abolish of slavery and also significantly altered the war's path in both positive and negative ways, depending on the perspective you look through. This is what makes it pivotal. In the beginning of the article, Lysander Spooner, an abolitionist, "saw absolutely no moral analogy between slaves violently rising up to secure their liberty and the central government violently crushing aspirations for self-determination on the part of white southerners." In other words, he believes what is mentioned in the intro to this blog; "political slavery" had taken the place of "chattel slavery", which I believe was true until several years after the war ceased. I also found it interesting how blacks were "treating the Union forces as liberators" and provided military support/intelligence, although they were basically just being taken advantage of.

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  9. Just as the blog says, there is no doubt about that the Emancipation Proclamation was the Pivotal, not only because it perished the slavery gradually, but also because it prevented the south from getting help from the Europe(because Britain banned slavery so they won't be willing to get involved within the affair) and killed south's energy supply from the slavery based economy(as the reading mentions lots of slaves freed them self and then either fight against their masters or flee to the north to complete their obligation to their "liberator"). In my eyes, that was pretty much an"one stone, plenty birds"...

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  10. The Emancipation Proclamation was incredibly important for ending slavery, but it was, at it's core, a political move. It caused Europe to stop trading with the South because they too had outlawed slavery and while individuals may have agreed with slavery the country as a whole did not. Two hundred thousand African Americans served in the Union army as a result of the proclamation which gave the north an even higher numerical superiority over the South.

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  11. it was so pivotal because it was still a step forward, it proved that equality (or at least partial) was not so far fetched. An analogy would be someone uniting to countries that have been at war for decades or even centuries, proving to the modern world that race-wide unity isn't impossible. Just like this proved that free blacks was also a possibility.

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