Listener Call

PETER: This is BackStory. I’m Peter Onuf, your 18th Century Guy.

ED: I’m Ed Ayers, your 19th Century Guy.

BRIAN: And I’m Brian Balogh, your 20th Century Guy.

ED: Today, we’re talking about in Emancipation Proclamation on its 150th anniversary.

PETER: As we do each week, we’ve been fielding your comments on the topic at backstoryradio.org. And we’re going to hear from one of those commenters right now. It’s Alan from our nation’s capital. Alan, welcome to the show.

ALAN: Oh, thanks a lot. I just wanted to get your opinion on this. It seems to me that for a lot of people, the discussion about the emancipation policy has been Lincolnized. So Lincolnized. So what do I mean by that? Well, the thing is that Lincoln wasn’t the sole force behind the Union’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Like, we know for example that in 1861 Benjamin Butler helped get the ball rolling when he gave asylum to three escaped slaves in Virginia. And the Union Army would continue to give de facto freedom to thousands of slaves, even before the Proclamation was issued. But it seems like people don’t talk about that.

Another thing. It was the US Congress that passed the Confiscation Acts and the Militia Act in 1861 and 1862. Now those authorized the use of black soldiers, and they also granted freedom to the slaves of Rebel slaveholders. And it was the second Confiscation Act that actually has the language that these slaves would be forever free. And of course, Lincoln uses it that in the Emancipation Proclamation.

So it just seems to me like the focus is Abraham Lincoln all day, all the time. And I just wonder why all these other important players don’t get any attention and notice. Because they’re pivotal as well.

ED: Yeah. It’s such a good question, Alan. Just recently, I was studying the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. And at the New York Public Library, they have a copy of it. And what you see is he literally took scissors and cut out those Confiscation Acts and passed them in his draft of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. So if you’re looking for material evidence of your argument, there you are.

PETER: You win.

ED: I think that people at the time knew that there were all these other forces pushing toward emancipation. And they’re wondering, what is taking Lincoln so long? It’s not as if, hey, wait, suddenly the Great Emancipator comes out with this document. Everybody’s going, well, what took you so long? They’ve been waiting for this. Because Congress is pushing. His party is pushing. Parts of the Army are pushing. The Abolitionists are pushing.

He would have been seen at the time as a foot-dragger. He would not have been seen as a pioneer. So why do we Lincolnize it? Well, part of it is is that we tend to personalize history in general. We tend to imagine that Winston Churchill won World War II, and that sort of thing.

But it’s also the case is that we think about what the Proclamation implied, which is that only the President of United States, with his role as commander-in-chief, had the authority to end slavery as a war measure.

BRIAN: It’s the War Powers.

PETER: Yeah, exactly.

ED: It’s the War Power, right? Until he acted, Congress by itself, or the Union Army by itself, could not bring formal emancipation. So that’s my swing at your excellent question. What do you think?

ALAN: I totally agree with that. It seems like even a lot of scholars don’t give these other people the credit they’re due. And so we don’t really appreciate how many hands went into making this policy. And you know, the fact that they should be congratulated.

BRIAN: Well, Alan, talking about so many hands, I’m surprised that you haven’t talked about the role of enslaved people themselves. Because in many ways, it’s those people taking freedom into their own hands and forcing the hand of Lincoln on the one hand, and demonstrating to the Union troops and to Lincoln himself the valuable asset that these African Americans can be to the Union. That really is an important part of this emancipation story.

PETER: Brian, I think Alan put his finger on it when he uses the word credit. Who deserves credit for what happened? But it seems to me at the end of the day, the American people have to credit themselves. And Lincoln stands for the American people. This is not to denigrate anybody else’s contributions. No president operates on his own. But he is the person who can symbolize, embody, epitomize everything that’s happening to make victory in this war possible.

BRIAN: Well, I want to introduce another element in our answer to Alan’s good question. And that is, the way we view Lincoln, I’m quite convinced, has been very influenced by the way the Presidency itself has changed. And in the 20th century, there is what is known as the imperial presidency.

ED: Sort of the Mount Rushmore-ization of our presidents, right?

BRIAN: Yes. Perfect.

ED: If you think about when the Lincoln Memorial goes up, for example, and that whole kind imperial appearance that he has– I was just there last week and struck by how unhumble and how unLincoln-esque the Lincoln Memorial is. And I was thinking in some ways, it’s in the wake of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Their idea of what a president is becomes imperial. So I think we’ve forgotten the homespun nature of 19th century America and of Abraham Lincoln.

ALAN: Just to be sure, I don’t want to take anything away from Lincoln. Certainly, he took a lot of risk in that policy to be sure. But I’m wondering as the sesquicentennial goes on, how many– for example, if you watch C-SPAN, how many forums are there going to be about Lincoln and emancipation, and how many about what the Union Army did, and how many panels are going to be about what the Congress did. And what will people really remember about the role of others after all this is over. But I guess I’ll see what happens.

BRIAN: So Alan, I have a question for you.

ALAN: Sure.

BRIAN: What car would best represent the true story of emancipation? If it’s not the Lincolnization, what is it?

ALAN: I mean, it would probably be the minivan because you have to put all the people inside of it.

BRIAN: The minivan. Now that’s good. That’s very good. I like that.

ED: So there’s room for everybody. I love it. Thank you so much, Alan.

ALAN: All right. Thank you.

PETER: Bye-bye.