The Emancipation Proclamation: The Decision and the Writing

Abstract

The road that led to the issuing of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was a long and difficult one. It was marked by an incredible amount of pressure on Abraham Lincoln, pressure that began the day Sumter fell and that did not relent until his decision was announced on September 22, 1862. It is not possible to weigh the effects of the pressures created by hardheaded generals who would set slaves free in order to break the back of the Confederacy. One cannot know what impressions the procession of the Charles Sumners, the Orestes Brownsons and the religious deputations made on the President as they came by day and by night to tell him what he should do about slavery. Did a Greeley editorial or a Douglass speech sway him? One cannot know the answers to these questions, for Lincoln, the only one who could do so, never gave the answers. He was doubtlessly impressed by all arguments that were advanced, and he took all of them “under advisement.” But the final decision was his.