Abby Ortega
Dr. Ross-Nazzal
Hist 1301
May 9, 2016
Describe the “new birth of freedom” Lincoln called for in 1863 for that happened during Reconstruction.
This essay will examine the new birth of freedom. On December 8, 1863, President Lincoln offered a preliminary plan to reunite Confederate states with the Union. The Civil War, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, brought to America "a new birth of freedom." President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."By the war's end it was already clear that Reconstruction would bring far-reaching changes in Southern society and a redefinition of the place of blacks in American life.
This is important because the expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal Border States. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.
Also, from the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation