Emancipation Proclamation

Emancipation Proclamation

Emancipation Proclamation
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	high interest, readability grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	5.21

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		banned, equality, rejoined, wartime, proclamation, slavery, refused, beginning, immediately, enlist, military, victory, thoughts, deadline, thirteenth, anger
	content words:		President Abraham Lincoln, Border States, On September, In January

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Emancipation Proclamation
By Cathy Pearl

¹     From the very beginning of the war, President Abraham Lincoln was pushed to free the slaves. At first, he refused. He did not want to anger people in Border States and push those states into seceding. He also insisted that the war was being fought to save the Union, not to free the slaves.

²     Lincoln started to talk about the proclamation with his Cabinet early in the war. It was July of 1862. All of them had different thoughts about it. Some wanted Lincoln to issue it right away. Others worried that Lincoln would lose the next election because of it.

³     Freeing the slaves could help the North. Many blacks wanted to fight in the army. By freeing the slaves, they could then enlist. This would give the North more men to fight in the war.

⁴     Lincoln felt that the North needed to win a large victory before he freed the slaves. This victory came at the Battle of Antietam. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the proclamation. It was five days after the battle. Lincoln gave a deadline to the Southern states. If a state rejoined the Union by January 1, the state could keep slavery in place temporarily. If the state refused, all slaves would be freed.

⁵     The order could not take effect until the Union soldiers took control of Southern states. Still, slaves had been used to help the war effort in the South. They heard about their freedom by word of mouth. Many slaves began to run away which caused more confusion in the South.

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