The Emancipation Proclamation

By the summer of 1862 President Lincoln realized that the North would only win the war if he could arouse more enthusiasm for its cause. On September 22 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation with this aim. This Proclamation declared that from January 1, 1863, all slaves were to be made free - but only if they lived in areas that were part of the Confederacy. The Proclamation changed the purpose of the war. From a struggle to preserve the Union, it became a struggle both to preserve the Union and to abolish slavery.

At the time not everyone was impressed by Lincoln's action. A British leader, Lord Palmerston, said that all Lincoln had done was "to abolish slavery where he was without power to do so, while protecting it where he had the power to destroy it." Palmerston was right. But after the Emancipation Proclamation everyone knew that it was only a matter of time now before slavery was ended everywhere in the United States.

Bryn O'Callaghan: An illustrated history of the USA; Longman, Harlow, 1990/1996, page 51