What Was The Reason For Liberation Of Slaves During The Civil War

The liberation of slaves during the Civil War can be credited to multiple sources such as Abraham Lincoln, religious groups, and the slaves themselves. The Civil War, which took place during the years of 1861 to 1865, was a battle between the southern confederate states against the northern union states about whether the nation would remain whole. The main cause of the war was slavery; the issue was that the Union wanted to abolish slavery while the Confederates wanted to preserve slavery. On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a document called, The Emancipation Proclamation, which was the first step in the abolition of slavery. Although, who actually did free the slaves? There are many components that fit into this question: religion, …show more content…
America as society knew it was falling apart at the seams due to the Union and Confederate sides of the nation fighting for the abolition of slavery. However, the abolishment of slavery was not the main goal in the eyes of Lincoln “Lincoln consistently avoided any public announcements that would suggest his desire to end slavery as a war aim. The priority was preserving the Union, and Lincoln did not view emancipation as essential to that goal” but Lincoln knew that he had to do something to please both the Union and the Confederates so that his true goal of keeping the nation intact would be fulfilled. With the Unions goal of completely eliminating slavery and the Confederates willing to die for the preservation of slavery was a difficult task to accomplish. Thus on January 1st 1863, Lincoln developed the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that stated any slaves held in rebellious states are now free and forever be free. This sounded like a great movement and inevitably would free all slaves under oppression, right? Wrong. The Proclamation did not free a single slave “No slave declared free by the Proclamation was ever returned to slavery once he or she made it to the safety of Union-held territory” this fine detail became a large issue for the slaves, it meant that in order to be free the slaves would have to successfully escape on …show more content…
How did the slaves in a sense, free themselves? After the Proclamation finely stated that slaves must flee to Union territory to fully be free they had to escape first. Escaping meant more than freedom, slaves had a great desire to obtain citizenship since many slaves born in the United States were not considered citizens. Leaders such as Frederick Douglas stated that “There is no power on earth which can deny that he [slaves] has earned the right to citizenship in the United States” and with that being said, an opportunity arose for slaves to acquire the citizenship they wanted but it came with a price, their life. As the Civil War went on, the Confederate army was rich in leadership and determination, while the Union had a substantial amount of soldiers involved which gave slaves the chance to join the Union Army. Slaves would reap many benefits if they joined, such as being hired for pay, freedom, and citizenship; this enticed many slaves. Slaves joined the Union Army, “As Federal armies penetrated deeper into the Confederacy, blacks flocked to Union lines for sanctuary from slavery” and as the slaves joined the army it became stronger and in the end, able to defeat the Confederate army winning the war on the abolition of slavery. By hoping and acting upon their own motives, slaves were able to find groups that would accept them and in a way, set