Emancipation Proclamation
Issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation
Proclamation declared "all persons held as slaves
within any State or designated part of a State, the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States,
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Although
the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery, it did
change the basic character of the Civil War. Instead of
waging a war to restore the old Union as it was before
1861, the North was now fighting to create a new Union
without slavery. The proclamation also authorized the recruitment
of African Americans as Union soldiers. By the end of the
Civil War, approximately 180,000 African Americans had
served in the Union army and 18,000 in the navy.
Library of
Congress Web Site | External Web
Sites | Selected
Bibliography
Abraham
Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 20,000 documents, including an essay on Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation.
Major documents in this collection bearing on the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, are as follows:
- Abraham Lincoln to Congress, [February-March 1862] (Draft of Message to Congress on federally compensated emancipation)
- Address to Border State Representatives, [July 12, 1862]
- Abraham Lincoln to Congress, [July 17, 1862] (Draft of Veto Message)
- Abraham Lincoln, Tuesday, July 22, 1862 (Preliminary Draft of Emancipation Proclamation)
- Abraham Lincoln, Monday, September 22, 1862 (Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation)
- William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, December 30, 1862 [suggested revisions to Final Emancipation Proclamation -- Preliminary Draft]
- Montgomery Blair, Wednesday, December 31, 1862 (Notes on the Emancipation Proclamation)
- Salmon P. Chase to Abraham Lincoln, December 31, 1862 [suggested revisions to Final Emancipation Proclamation -- Preliminary Draft]
- Edward Bates, Memorandum, December 31, 1862 [suggestions for the Emancipation Proclamation]
- Salmon P. Chase, Proposed Revision of Emancipation Proclamation, [December 30-31?, 1862]
- Abraham Lincoln, [December 30, 1862] (Final Emancipation Proclamation--Preliminary Draft)
- Abraham Lincoln, [December 30, 1862] (Final Emancipation Proclamation--Preliminary Draft with Suggested Changes)
- Abraham Lincoln, [December 30, 1862] (Final Emancipation Proclamation,--Preliminary Draft, with Suggested Changes by William Henry Seward)
- Abraham Lincoln, [December 30, 1862] (Final Emancipation Proclamation--Preliminary Draft with Changes suggested by Edward Bates, with copies: Made for Members of the Cabinet)
- Salmon P. Chase, [December 31? 1862] (Memorandum on Emancipation)
- Final Emancipation Proclamation -- Final Draft, January 1, 1863, [lithograph copy of Lincoln's manuscript]
Search
the Abraham Lincoln Papers using the word "emancipation proclamation"
to find additional items related to the Emancipation Proclamation.
The
Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana
This collection contains seventy items related to
the Emancipation
Proclamation, including government documents, broadsides,
and sheet music.
A selection of highlights from this collection includes:
A
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional
Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
This collection contains congressional publications from 1774 to 1875, including debates, bills, laws, and journals.
Search
this collection using keywords such as "emancipation",
"slavery" and "abolition" to find
Congressional information on this this topic.
From
Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection
This collection presents 396 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, published from 1822 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics.
- Freedom national. The Emancipation Proclamation vindicated. The Emancipation Proclamation by the President of the United States, issued January 1st, 1863, and letter of the President of the U.S. to the Union convention, holden at Springfield, (Ill.,) Sept 3d, 1863.
- The Emancipation Proclamation. Speeches of the Hon. Albert Andrus, of Franklin, and Hon. William H. Brand, of Madison, delivered in the Assembly, on the evening of March 4th, 1863, on the Hon. James Redington's resolutions in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, of the proclamation of freedom, and of the administration of Abraham Lincoln.
Chronicling America
This site allows you to search and view millions of historic American newspaper pages from 1789 to 1924. Search this collection to find newspaper articles about the Emancipation Proclamation.
A selection of articles on the Emancipation Proclamation includes:
- "The Proclamation," The National Republican. (Washington, D.C.), September 30, 1862.
- "The Army and the Proclamation," Belmont Chronicle. (St. Clairsville, Ohio), October 9, 1862.
- "The Rebels Squirming Under the Emancipation Proclamation," The Nashville Daily Union. (Nashville, Tenn.), November 21, 1862.
- "The Proclamation," Daily National Republican. (Washington, D.C.), January 2, 1863.
In addition, the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room has created a series of topics guides to the newspapers included in Chronicling America, including a guide on the Emancipation Proclamation.
African
American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
This exhibition showcases the African American collections
of the Library of Congress. Displays more than 240 items,
including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps,
musical scores, plays, films, and recordings. Includes
a print based on David Gilmore Blythe's painting of Lincoln
writing the Emancipation Proclamation.
American
Treasures of the Library of Congress - Emancipation Proclamation
This online exhibition contains Lincoln’s first
and final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, as
well as the final version issued on January 1, 1863.
Also included is a letter that Lincoln wrote to Albert
G. Hodges in which he states “if slavery is not
wrong, nothing is wrong.”
With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial
Exhibition
This online exhibition commemorates the two-hundredth
anniversary of the birth of the nation’s revered
sixteenth president and includes a section on the Emancipation
Proclamation.
April
16, 1862
President Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in
the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862.
September
22, 1862
The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued
on September 22, 1862.

The Collected
Works of Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln Association
Documents
from Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation,
1861-1867, University of Maryland
The
Emancipation Proclamation: An Act of Justice, National
Archives and Records Administration
Exhibit
Hall, The Emancipation Proclamation, National Archives
and Records Administration
“I
Will Be Heard!” Abolitionism in America, Cornell
University Library
Mr.
Lincoln and Freedom, The Lincoln Institute
Our
Documents, The Emancipation Proclamation, National
Archives and Records Administration
Toward Racial
Equality: Harper’s Weekly Reports on Black America,
1857-1874, HarpWeek
Virtual
Exhibit, The Emancipation Proclamation, New York
State Library
Carnahan,
Burrus M. Act of Justice: Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War. Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky, 2007. [Catalog
Record]
Brewster, Todd. Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War. New York: Scribner, 2014. [Catalog Record]
Franklin, John Hope. The Emancipation
Proclamation. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson,
1995. [Catalog
Record]
Guelzo, Allen C. Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. [Catalog
Record]
Holzer, Harold. Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. [Catalog
Record]
-----, Edna Greene Medford, and Frank J. Williams.
The Emancipation Proclamation: Three
Views (Social, Political, Iconographic). Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 2006. [Catalog
Record]
-----, and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, eds. Lincoln
and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth
Amendment. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 2007. [Catalog
Record]
Klingaman, William K. Abraham Lincoln
and the Road to Emancipation, 1861-1865. New York:
Viking, 2001. [Catalog
Record]
Masur, Louis P. Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012. [Catalog Record]
Carey, Charles W., Jr. The Emancipation
Proclamation. Chanhassen, Minn.: Child's World,
2000. [Catalog
Record]
Heinrichs, Ann. The Emancipation
Proclamation. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point
Books, 2002. [Catalog
Record]
Holford, David M. Lincoln and the
Emancipation Proclamation in American History.
Berkely Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 2002. [Catalog
Record]
Tackach, James. The Emancipation
Proclamation: Abolishing Slavery in the South.
San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books, 1999. [Catalog
Record]
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