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Unlock This CourseEach side in the Civil War had a president. Abraham Lincoln led the Union (the states that stayed loyal to the United States government). Jefferson Davis led the Confederacy (the Southern states that had left the Union). Both had to raise armies, find money and keep their people behind the war. How well they did this had a big impact on the result.
Remember, in 1861 Lincoln's aim was to save the Union, not to end slavery. By 1863 that had changed, and this lesson shows how.
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Lincoln was a lawyer from Illinois with no experience of running a war. He explained the war in simple, powerful words. He kept the border states loyal, because losing them would have made the Union much weaker. He was ready to change generals until he found winners, and in March 1864 he put Ulysses S. Grant in charge of all Union armies. He brought in conscription in March 1863, and he was re-elected in November 1864.
Davis was a West Point graduate who had been a US senator and Secretary of War, so he knew the army well. He was chosen as Confederate president in February 1861. But the Confederacy had been built on states' rights, and many state governors, such as Joseph Brown of Georgia and Zebulon Vance of North Carolina, resisted his orders. Davis brought in conscription in April 1862, a year before Lincoln, and it was bitterly unpopular.
Comparing them: Lincoln had a clearer message, stronger government support and, with Grant, the right general. Davis had more military experience and backed Lee, but he struggled to hold together a government that was split over how much power the centre should have. Neither side's leadership was perfect, but the Union's worked better.
In September 1862 the Union army stopped Lee's invasion of the North at Antietam. Five days later, on 22 September 1862, Lincoln announced that unless the rebelling states returned, he would free the enslaved people in them. They did not return, so on 1 January 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation came into force.
Lincoln used his powers as commander-in-chief. He argued that freeing enslaved people was a war measure, a way of weakening the enemy. Enslaved people grew food, dug trenches and worked for the Confederate army, so freeing them hurt the South.
It declared enslaved people in the areas still in rebellion to be "forever free". It made ending slavery a Union war aim, not only saving the Union. It allowed black men to join the Union army and navy. It meant that every Union advance now brought freedom closer.
It did not free enslaved people in the border states, or in the parts of the Confederacy already held by the Union. It could not be enforced in the South until Union armies arrived. It did not end slavery across the whole USA. That needed a change to the Constitution, the 13th Amendment, covered in the lesson on the Civil Rights Acts and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
Once the Proclamation allowed it, black men enlisted in large numbers. By the end of the war about 180,000 had served in the Union army, around one in ten of its soldiers. Many saw the war as a fight for their own freedom and their families' freedom. Many were former slaves from the South. At first they were often paid less than white soldiers, $10 a month against $13, until Congress equalised pay in June 1864. They fought bravely, and their service helped the Union win. It also strengthened the argument that men who had fought for the nation deserved to be citizens.
On 19 November 1863, four and a half months after the battle, Lincoln spoke at the opening of a cemetery for the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg. The main speaker, Edward Everett, spoke for about two hours. Lincoln spoke for about two minutes, and his speech was only around 270 words.
He began "Four score and seven years ago", meaning 87 years, taking his listeners back to 1776 and the idea that all men are created equal. He said the war was a test of whether a nation built on that idea could last. He ended by calling for "a new birth of freedom" and said that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".
The speech did not mention slavery by name, but it gave the war a bigger meaning: freedom and democracy, not just keeping the states together. At the time some newspapers praised it, and others paid it little attention. Today it is one of the most famous speeches in American history.
In 1861 Lincoln fought only to keep the Union together. By 1863 the war was also about ending slavery. What stayed the same was the Union's aim of defeating the Confederacy, and the fact that slavery would not be ended everywhere until after the fighting.
Explain TWO causes of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. [8 marks]
One cause was the military need to weaken the Confederacy. Enslaved people grew food and dug trenches for the Confederate armies, so Lincoln, as commander-in-chief, saw that freeing them in rebel areas would hurt the South's war effort. It would also bring men to the Union side, because black men would be allowed to join the army. This led directly to the Proclamation, which Lincoln presented as a war measure.
A second cause was the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862. Lincoln had wanted to wait for a win so that the announcement would not look like a sign of weakness. Antietam gave him that moment, and on 22 September 1862 he warned the rebelling states that enslaved people in them would be free on 1 January 1863. The Proclamation also helped keep Britain and France from backing the Confederacy.
To reach the top level, each cause needs precise evidence and a clear explanation of how it led to the Proclamation, as above (Antietam and the 22 September warning).
You must give TWO causes. One cause alone, however well explained, cannot score more than 4 of the 8 marks. Finish each paragraph with a sentence that says how that cause led to the Proclamation.