The standard popular narrative of the American Civil War is that it was a war fought to end slavery, pitched between the slaveholding seceded South, the Confederate States of America, and the free, abolitionist North, the Union, upon the election of the antislavery advocate Abraham Lincoln. With the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the Civil War supposedly became a defining moment in the struggle for racial equality in the USA, with its achievements being enshrined in the subsequent Thirteenth Amendment. Although the war was a result of the bitter contention over the future of slavery, as this traditional depiction suggests, it would be too simplistic to argue that the antislavery stance was driven by moral qualms. Whilst many in the North did object to the ‘peculiar institution’, their emancipationist efforts only came to fruition when it became clear that including free blacks in the armed forces was necessary for a Union victory. The Emancipation Proclamation was preceded by years of hesitancy on the part of the policy makers: Lincoln’s priority was always the Union and while ending slavery was important, it was more of a means to victory than an end in itself. Of course, the different actors on the Civil War stage had different reasons for advancing, or not advancing, emancipation, but the legal thrust of freeing the enslaved people was because of military need.
First, it is evident in many of Lincoln’s speeches and letters that emancipation was not at the top of his agenda: the survival of the Union was. This position is plain to see in his 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, who had complained that Lincoln was conceding too much to the “fossil politicians” of the border states: the president declared: “my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do that.”[1] Some of the policies he enacted follow this cautious approach to emancipation, and prioritisation of the Union. For example, Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in December 1863 to attempt to knit the Union back together. This required a minimum of 10% of the population in a rebelling state to swear an oath to the Constitution and all of the laws and proclamations passed by the Union since the Civil War began. The state would thus be allowed to reenter the Union, to then call a constitutional convention to abolish slavery in the state. Rebels would then be pardoned. This was a very conservative measure, in both the low threshold needed and the fact it did not require the immediate end to slavery. Lincoln hoped that conservatism would keep the Democrats in the fold: his pragmatism and caution meant a principled drive to immediate emancipation was sacrificed.[2] Similarly, he forced the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, to get rid of a passage about the freeing and arming of slaves in the 1861 annual report, and revoked the orders of some of his generals that freed the enslaved people in the territories they were commanding. Hesitancy, rather than strong morality, seemed to be the overriding theme of Lincoln’s approach, at least in the earlier years of the war, and many were disappointed with him for this: William Lloyd Garrison, for example, claimed that “the President can do nothing for freedom in a direct manner, but only by circumlocution and delay”.[3]
Likewise, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single enslaved person by itself, which hardly suggests that the prevailing factor fuelling it was any great moral conviction. It freed no enslaved people in the border states, or in those Confederate areas already occupied by Union troops. Thus, the only people it ‘freed’ were those still in areas controlled by the Confederacy: the places where Lincoln’s power did not extend to. The limitations of the order indicate that top policy makers still hoped to conciliate secessionists and keep the border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and eventually West Virginia) on side by not enacting a law that would cost them their property, implying once more that unity was seen as the goal. Lincoln explicitly said that emancipation was a “military necessity, absolutely essential to the preservation of the Union. We must free the slaves or ourselves be subdued. The slaves were undeniably an element of strength to those who had their service, and we must decide whether that element should be with us or against us.”[4] Though opinions were changing towards using African American men in combat, this was driven principally by the circumstances of the war, not because the enslaved were seen by whites as equal citizens deserving of emancipation in their own right. If they could help the Union, they could be freed. Many echoed this view that the Union and victory were the most important things. For example, when Postmaster General Montgomery Blair was appointed to Lincoln’s cabinet, he declared that “I am for the Union, now and forever, and against all its enemies, whether fire-eaters or abolitionists.” While he did not oppose ending slavery per se, he feared that it would further polarise politics and would give the impression that they were fighting a revolutionary struggle, rather than one for the restoration of the Union.[5] This sentiment was felt at a more popular level, too: a white private from New York said that “we must first conquer and then it’s time enough to talk about the dam’d niggers”.[6] Morality was not always at the forefront of the minds of those involved.
Nevertheless, the fact that there was a succession of secessions following Lincoln’s election in 1860 suggests that it was at least believed by many that the Republicans were a true threat to the survival of slavery. Before there was even a military necessity for emancipation, many objected to the election of the new president on the grounds that he had campaigned on an antislavery platform. In 1854, Lincoln had denounced slavery as a “monstrous injustice” and attacked Stephen Douglas for his indifference. In a letter to the soon-to-be Vice President of the Confederate States, Alexander Stephens, Lincoln wrote: “you think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub.”[7] The South knew his speeches by heart and had no doubts about what his stance on slavery meant. Thus, South Carolina, the first state to secede, did so imminently after Lincoln’s election, on December 20th 1860, with little hesitation. It was soon followed by six other states. For all that Lincoln would show himself to prize the integrity of the Union, he ‘refused to yield the core of his antislavery philosophy to stay the breakup of the Union’, according to James M. McPherson.[8] McPherson argues that while the traditional view of Lincoln as the ‘Great Emancipator’ is problematic, in ignoring the agency of the enslaved themselves and potentially stirring up a white myth to deprive African Americans of the credit, to take the other extreme is inaccurate as well: Lincoln did have a huge hand in freeing the enslaved. His role may have been over-exaggerated, but it was still Lincoln who issued the proclamation. Likewise, John David Smith argues that Lincoln ‘chartered a far more linear course toward freedom than his nineteenth century critics and modern historians have recognised’.[9] Many at least believed that the new president held a moral conviction that slavery was wrong and would thus threaten their interests, even if the strength of this morality is debatable. It was their perceptions that were important.
That the resulting Proclamation was powerful and became symbolic of freedom cannot be denied: Michael Vorenberg claims that it ‘defined the Civil War as a war for black freedom’.[10] Even though attitudes were changing as the war continued, freeing the enslaved people was still a risky move and surely relied on holding to principles of freedom at some level. When the Confederacy was seemingly winning the war, the need to keep the precariously positioned border states on side was particularly pressing, especially after Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina seceded. Even when the tide appeared to be turning towards the Union in 1862, it was still important to keep the remaining border states on side, lest they swing the balance. Together, all eight border states contained 65% of the white population of the South, along with 60% of the South’s livestock and crops. Their secession would thus give the Confederacy a huge resource boost. Given that two thirds of the border state representatives signed a manifesto rejecting the proposal for compensated emancipation, giving up efforts to conciliate must have seemed particularly dangerous for the Union. Recruiting free blacks for the army may have been a military necessity, but it was an uncertain tactic nonetheless. The fact that many on Lincoln’s own side were skeptical furthers this; George B. McClellan’s ‘Harrison’s Landing Letter’ showed the divisions of the North over the purpose and direction of the war. He claimed that private property should be respected, and that the war should not be “looking to the subjugation of the people of any state, in any event”.[11] When the context of uncertainty, hostility and risk is examined, it indicates that there may have been other reasons for delay than just a shortcoming in moral conviction. It was no accident that it was precisely these difficult, hard to sustain areas that were excluded from the emancipation proclamation.
However, the experiences of African Americans in the armed forces suggests that they were viewed in terms of their military usefulness, rather than as true US citizens that the Union had the moral duty to liberate. Those enrolled with the United States Colored Troops (USCTs) were confronted with racism in the army and found that their experiences of combat and military life were separate and unequal. They did a disproportionate amount of manual labour and were paid less, and when they did fight, they faced much greater risks than their white counterparts. The Confederacy threatened to enslave, re-enslave or execute any black soldiers it captured, and 66% of the black troops at the Battle of Fort Pillow in 1864 were massacred whilst trying to surrender. Throughout the war, over a fifth of African American soldiers died of disease, compared to one in twelve white soldiers: over a third of blacks in the army died, but just 2,751 of these were killed in action.[12] Similarly, a surgeon appointed to a USCT in 1863 remarked that “very few surgeons will do precisely the same for blacks as they would for whites”.[13] An already difficult and scarring situation was made much worse for African American soldiers: if they were freed due to pressing morality, this only extended so far. In addition, many whites remained uneasy about arming blacks. General William T. Sherman was among them: he both did not trust armed blacks, and thought they would lower the morale of his white soldiers. Lincoln again showed the limits to his moral compass with regards to slavery and racism: when meeting with a free black delegation in Washington in 1862, he promoted black colonisation once again, saying that both blacks and whites would benefit from separation: to do otherwise would be “selfish”. He also claimed that “many men engaged on either side do not care for you either way”. This indicates that the former enslaved were often viewed merely as numbers within the armed forces: emancipation did not stretch to any recognition of equality for many.
Yet, emancipation was not just a top down phenomenon, bestowed on passive blacks by benevolent whites. It had been fought for by black abolitionists for decades and in the Civil War, many enslaved people voted with their feet. 500,000 enslaved people escaped to Union lines, and about 179,000 of these would serve in the Union army.[14]Sven Beckert argues that ‘American slaves pressed to make a sectional war into a war of emancipation’: the change over time in thinking towards emancipation was largely due to the (formerly) enslaved themselves. For example, even before the fall of Fort Sumter in March 1861, eight runaway enslaved people arrived at a federal garrison in Florida, hoping that in crossing to Union controlled ground, they would gain their freedom.[15] They were thus forcing the issue of emancipation themselves: they had no need for any ‘great emancipator’. The courage demonstrated by the African American soldiers gradually managed to change public perceptions of them too. Abolitionist Angelina Grimké Weld stated that “their heroism is working a great change in public opinion, forcing all men to see the sin and shame of enslaving such men”.[16] While not all shared such a conviction, many were beginning to recognise the worth of having African American soldiers in the military. For example, a woman from Kentucky wrote in late 1862: “I am no abolitionist but I am for closing this war as quickly as possible and if [it] can [only] be done by freeing all the niggers, let them go.”[17] Frederick Douglass claimed that “the opportunity is given to us to be men”.[18] In 1861, he had penned an article called ‘How to end the war’ in which he argued that the enslaved people should be a liberating army. This suggests that military necessity and moral conviction do not have to be separate: Douglass clearly believed that slavery was a moral outrage, but also saw military service as a way to end slavery and prove the rights of the black population to equality.
In conclusion, moral conviction was a necessary, but not sufficient, driver of emancipation during the American Civil War: the primary factor was in fact military necessity. Although there was a significant moral component in the coming of the Emancipation Proclamation, emancipation itself did not occur until midway through the Civil War, when it became clear that tapping into the resources of African American manpower could facilitate the Union’s win. The liberating effect of the Proclamation is undeniable, but it would be inaccurate to over emphasise the moral reasoning behind it, at least on the part of those in power. Lincoln himself said over and over that the Union was at the core of everything he did: emancipation was not only an end in itself, but also a means to victory. Of course, emancipation was not just a ‘great man’ story; thousands of enslaved people forced the administration’s hand by voting with their feet, and for years black and white abolitionists alike had been agitating for freedom. But, as a policy, military necessity was the main driver of emancipation.
Chantelle Lee wrote this essay while in her final year of a BA in History at Cambridge University (Sidney Sussex College). She has now graduated from Oxford University (Mansfield College) with an MSt in US History.
Notes: [1] James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.510. [2] Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp.46-47. [3] John David Smith, ed., Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), p.22. [4] James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p.504. [5] Adam I.P. Smith, No Party Now: Politics in the Civil War North (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp.49-50. [6] James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p.497. [7] James M. McPherson, “Who Freed the Slaves?,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 139, no. 1 (1995), p.5 [8] Ibid. [9] John David Smith, ed., Black Soldiers in Blue, p.xiii. [10] Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom, p.1. [11] Adam I.P. Smith, The American Civil War, (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) [12] John David Smith, ed., Black Soldiers in Blue, pp.39-46. [13] Ibid., p.42. [14] John David Smith, ed., Black Soldiers in Blue, p.xiii. [15] Adam I.P. Smith, The American Civil War, p.93. [16] Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom, p.37. [17] Adam I.P. Smith, The American Civil War, p.102. [18] John David Smith, Black Soldiers in Blue, p.28.
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