Civil War - the Effects of the Emancipation Proclamation to the Nation

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As Lincoln’s will, the Proclamation turned foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union by gaining the support of anti-slavery countries and those countries had already abolished slavery. This change ended the Confederacy's hopes of gaining official recognition.

Since the Emancipation Proclamation made the disappearance of slavery as an clear Union war goal, it also linked support for the South to support for slavery. Public opinion in Britain would not tolerate this direct support for slavery. However British companies continued to build and operate blockade runners for the South. As Henry Adams noted, "The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us than all our former victories and all our diplomacy." In Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi hailed Lincoln as "the heir of the aspirations of John Brown". On August 6, 1863, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure. Alan Van Dyke, a representative for workers from Manchester, England, wrote to Lincoln saying, "We joyfully honor you for many decisive steps toward practically exemplifying your belief in the words of your great founders: 'All men are created free and equal.'" The Emancipation Proclamation acted the role to ease stress with Europe over the North's conduct of the war, and considered with the Southern also made offensive at Antietam, they decided to cut off all of the chances for the Confederacy to receive any international support for the war.

Yet as important as the Emancipation Proclamation was to America’s history, its actual impact on slavery was minimal at best. If nothing more, it was a way to solidify the president’s position as an abolitionist and to ensure the fact that slavery would be ended. Slavery wasn’t officially ended in the United States of America until the 13th Amendment was passed, in 1865.

One of the issues with the Emancipation Proclamation was that it was passed as a wartime measure. During the past of the United States, laws are not passed through the president, but are passed by Congress. This made the freedom of the slavery to be impossible, if the North win the war, the Emancipation Proclamation would not continue to be a constitutionally legal document. It would need to be ratified by the government in order to stay in effect.

The purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation has been confused in the period of history. The basic effect is that it freed the slaves. That is only partially correct, it merely freed the slaves in the South, something that wasn’t particularly enforceable due to the fact South was in a rebellion. What it did do however was ensure that if the North won, the South would be forced to free all of their slaves. Ultimately that would lead to the freedom of 3.1 million slaves. However, most of those slaves were not free until after the war had concluded.

The Emancipation Proclamation was pretty much criticized on all sides of the political circumstance. The pro-slavery movement believed that it was wrong and immoral for the president to inflict such a thing, but they could not announce more opposed words in order to perverse the union. The North had originally tried to use the Emancipation Proclamation as a threat to the South. The terms were simple, return to the Union or face the vital consequences that all slaves would be freed. When the South refused to return, the North decided to declare the document. This situation made Lincoln’s political opponents tied together because all of them didn’t want to lose their slaves, however at the same time it would be a worse disaster if United States were divided into two different nations.

There was a lot of affairs in the abolitionist movement as well. Many of the abolitionists believed that it wasn’t a sufficient document because it did not totally uproot the slavery and in fact it was only enforced in the states that it did permit such release. Since the South states were in a war, there was not much power for them to follow with the order. Lincoln was also criticized by many different factions, and there is even a doubt what his true motives of his decisions. But it is important to remember that the success of the Emancipation Proclamation was linked with the victory of the North. If the North succeeded and was able to catch the control of the Union again, reunifying all the states also including the South states of rebellion, it would have freed all of their slaves. The rest of America would be forced to follow with the order. This meant that Abraham Lincoln was well aware of his actions. He knew that the Emancipation Proclamation was not a permanent, final solution to the problem of slavery but actually it was a powerful and useful weapon to open the victory of the union.

This changed the purpose of the Civil War as well. Before the Emancipation Proclamation, the North was engaged in military action against the South due to the fact of the South was trying to secede from the Union. Originally, as the war seen by the North, it was a war to preserve the unity of America. The South was trying to secede because numerous of reasons. There are a lot of simplest reasons offered for why the North and the South were divided. The most common reason stated is that the South wanted to have slavery and Lincoln was purely a tough abolitionist. One of the theories why the Civil War was started was because the South wanted a greater level of states’ rights, whereas the current Republican Party was pushing for a more unified type of government. Another reason for the Civil War was also considered about the absence of the manufacturing force for the North that most of the slaves were controlled and gathered in the South states, in order to got the man power to manufacture more products and promote the economic market for the North states, they triggered the war. The truth was that the motivations of the South’s secession was obtained plenty of reasons, it was more likely a collection of all the above ideas. To say there was a single reason for the Civil War is a massive underestimation of how politics worked.

Regardless of the South’s purpose for leaving the union, when the North made the decision to free the slaves in the South states, it became very clear that this would become an abolitionist war. The South relied heavily on slavery in order to make them survive. Their economics were based chiefly on a slave economy, as opposed to the North which had been developing a primarily industrial economy. The North was with a higher level of education, well weapon-equipped, and their production capacity did not rely on slaves as much as South, because abolition had become more popular. As the abolitionists