Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America

by Allen C. Guelzo

Book Overview

One of the nation's foremost Lincoln scholars offers an authoritative consideration of the document that represents the most far-reaching accomplishment of our greatest president. No single official... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743221826
• ISBN13: 9780743221825
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 332 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

Places Mr. Lincoln and the Proclamation in their correct political, social and historic contexts. For me, this makes the document the result of an act of moral and political courage. Well written and researched, this book made it easier for me to understand the 16th President, and to get behind the veil that separates us from him, socially and historically. Interesting look into a pivotal time. Recommended.

Important history...excellent insight...wonderfully told!

I tip my hat to Dr. Guelzo for writing this outstanding book about President Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. This book receives my strongest recommendation. Misunderstandings of the man and this important document's meaning and effect seem to run rampant. This is due, in no small part, to lackluster scholarship and/or some sort of Kantian absolutism--both which the author briefly refers to in his introduction. Indeed, the introduction is itself something that people who want to understand Lincoln should read. The operative term here: prudence. The book covers the issuance of the Proclamation and time leading up to it from several angles-militarily, politically, legally, ethically and even theologically. Of course, none of the aforementioned dimensions were so easily divisible, as Guelzo notes. Had Lincoln not taken political and constitutional considerations into account in making military plans, he would have risked serious setbacks to the cause of the Union through a re-election defeat or by an adverse Supreme Court decision rendering him helpless to save the Union. The Border States were crucial to the survival of the Union and a Congress supporting the war effort was likewise essential. None of these were guaranteed, as Lincoln and his supporters had much work before them to ensure that a nation reluctantly plunged into war would not back out and elect a peace-seeking, compromise Democrat who would ultimately dissolve the Union. One need hardly mention that it was the Supreme Court that helped plunge the nation into war with the horrendous Dred Scott decision, and that Lincoln also had to be mindful that that same Court could certainly strike down the Proclamation as exceeding the scope of the President's War Powers. Gulezo conveys the sense of care and caution with which Lincoln promulgated the Proclamation and does so in a gripping fashion. This book is superbly written and is a read worthy of any admirer of America's greatest President.

The Great Event of the Nineteenth Century

Abraham Lincoln issued the final version of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Near the end of that year, the artist Francis Carpenter determined to paint "a historical picture of the first reading of the Proclamation of Emancipation". Carpenter spent six months in the White House beginning in February, 1864, created a historically important painting of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to the cabinet, got to know Lincoln, and wrote a book detailing his experiences. Carpenter wrote that Lincoln told him regarding the Emancipation Proclamation: "It is the central act of my administration, and the great event of the nineteenth century".Professor Allen Guelzo tells the story of the Carpenter painting (p. 220-21), includes a photograph of the painting in the book, discusses Lincoln's statement to Carpenter (p. 186) and includes much more in his detailed study, "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America" (2004). This book is a worthy successor to Professor Guelzo's recent study of Lincoln's religous and political beliefs in "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President".Professor Guelzo takes issue with a historical interpretation of the Emancipation Proclamation beginning with Richard Hofstadter (1948) that argues that Lincoln had little concern with the status of black Americans and issued the Emancipation Proclamation only from reasons of prudence to protect the interests of white workers. Guelzo also approaches the Emancipation Proclamation to address recent arguments by African-American scholars skeptical of Lincoln's role and pessimistic about the future of race relations in the United States.Professor Guelzo agrees that Lincoln approached the question of Emancipation cautiously. He offers several reasons for this caution. One major reason was Lincoln's fear of the reaction of the Federal courts to an attempt by the Executive to emancipate the slaves. Lincoln had good grounds for this concern as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney, was the author of the notorious Dred Scott decision. Lincoln also had to act with the concerns of the border states in mind as these states were critical to the Union war effort; and he had to contend with generals and a substantial portion of the population of the North that would oppose any attempt to turn the Civil War from a war to preserve the Union to a war to free the slaves. To circumvent these obstacles, Lincoln proposed a system of compensated emancipation and asked the border states to adopt such a plan with Federal financial assistance. He also wanted to explore voluntary colonization efforts under which the freed slaves would be colonized in central America or in a location in the Western United States.Professor Guelzo describes how the border states resisted any notion of compensated emancipation. He also describes Federal legislative efforts, and efforts of some Union commanders, to protect former slaves making their way to the Union l

A Great Post Revisionist Work in honor of a Great President

Allen C. Guelzo wrote this superb book as a work to counter the prevalent [revisionist] school of thought that holdsthat Lincoln was a very reluctant emancipator - if even that. What many people hold against Lincoln, as is well known, is that he only touched slavery where slaves were out of his reach [i.e. living in confederate states in rebellion], and did not set people free where they were within his reach [i.e. in the loyal Border States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri]. HOWEVER: as Guelzo points out: when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he invoked the constitutionally warranted [and untried] WAR POWERS in his role as Commander-in-Chief, which only apply during wartime/times of rebellion. Slavery did NOT fall under FEDERAL jurisdiction, but under STATE jurisdiction. In other words: the institution of slavery was "protected" by the firewall protecting states from any intervention on the part of the federal government. Should Lincoln have ended slavery in the BORDER states, his action would have been declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL by the Supreme Court in a heartbeat. After all: the Border states were NOT in rebellion (and thus protected, by the U.S. Constitution, from presidential decrees/proclamations pertaining to slavery!).Further complications: Roger B. Taney [Dred Scott case!] was still chief justice of the Supreme Court (!), not exactly somebody you'd call a friend of emancipation. Further more: such executive action would surely have resulted inthe loyal Border States actually joining the Confederacy. In the fall of 1862, there was even the threat of a march on Washington D.C., a military 'Coup-d'Etat,' led by Union Commander George McClellan at the head of the Armyof the Potomac. McClellan, in no uncertain terms, "warned" Lincoln to not intervene with slavery (!). Conclusion: Lincoln did what he could do without violating the U.S. Constitution - and certainly risked his political neck. As early as 1861, Lincoln advanced his own favored plan of gradual, compensated emancipation. Lincoln knew the limits of federal power as far as ending the institution of slavery was concerned: only the legislatures of individual states could vote to end slavery legally. Therefore: Lincoln doctored a plan to offer economic incentives that would make it attractive toslave states to abolish slavery by their own choice. The federal government would issue federal bonds to states that would end slavery as compensation for the capital loss emancipation would bring about. Lincoln's Secretary of theTreasury, Salmon Chase, calculated that should the federal government buy the freedom of all four million slaves in America at the time of the Civil War, this would still be less costly to the U.S. than a singly year of fighting the Civil War (!). When I asked Guelzo how he'd assess the meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation during a teacher seminar at the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs in Ohio, his answer was, "The Emancipation

THE GREAT MR.LINCOLN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE BEEN A LINCOLN SCHOLAR ALL MY LIFE AND AMONG HIS GREAT ACCOMPLIAHMENTS,HIS FREEING THE SLAVES(JANUARY 1,1863)WAS THE GREATEST!!!!!!!READ THIS BOOK!IT WILL MAKE YOU LOVE MR.LINCOLN THAT MUCH MORE!!!!!!!