The Emancipation Proclamation was delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the start of the third year of the Civil War. The purpose of the Civil War was to bring back into the Union those states that had decided to withdraw as a result of disagreement about slavery.
As defined by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, all states had entered into a contract with each other that could not be violated. That contract mandated that the signers and their states agreed to remain as a Union.
The secession of the Southern states violated this contract and therefore the Federal government stepped in to ensure an unbroken Union. The Civil War was focused on keeping the states together - not on eliminating slavery, at least at first. …show more content…
It proclaimed that all men were entitled to their freedom and that when the Union army liberated the states from the rule of the Confederacy, slaves in those states would be free.
The Effect of the Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln could not enforce his promises at the time and wouldn't be able to unless the North experienced military success in battle. This meant the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t affect the status of slaves. Blacks that lived in the North already were free men before the Proclamation, as those states had outlawed slavery before, and slaves in the South couldn't be freed until the North won the war. Still, the proclamation did pave the way to remove slavery from our country.
The proclamation was intended to act as an idea as to act as a war device. It was also partially intended to place the entire world on notification that the United States would not support slavery and that the Union sided with the oppressed. This served the purpose of keeping other countries from entering the war on the side of the