Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory: 12 (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Harold Holzer is Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 3: Sacred Effigies

The scene was wild and grand. Joy and gladness exhausted all forms of expression, from shouts of praise to joy and tears.” That was how Frederick Douglass described the moment when the words of the Emancipation Proclamation finally arrived over the telegraph wires on January 1, 1863. As he had written in a similarly jubilant mood three months earlier, when Lincoln first announced his emancipation policy: “We shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree.” Certainly the word joy could not describe the reigning mood at the White House ceremony at which Lincoln actually signed the document that Douglass and others first celebrated on that momentous holiday afternoon. In fact, calling it a ceremony at all would constitute an exaggeration; that it lacked emotion or fanfare of any kind is beyond dispute. All Lincoln did that day was quietly slip away from a long New Year’s reception in the East Room and walk upstairs to his office to affix his name to the document in almost total privacy. More over, he maddeningly took his time to do so, delaying his formal action for hours even as the nation waited anxiously for the fulfillment of a promise on which many people were absolutely convinced he would renege. It did not help relieve tensions that the holiday began, and continued well past midday, without any definite word from Washington. “Will Lincoln’s backbone carry him through?” wondered apprehensive New York diarist George Templeton Strong. “Nobody knows.”

Lincoln knew— he just kept his intentions to himself. But as he had confided to his wife, who argued that he should indeed refuse to sign the order, it was too late to waver: he was “a man under orders” from God to approve it. Perhaps just as formidably, he was also under orders from the First Lady to keep his promise to host their annual East Room New Year’s levee without interruption. For a time, Mrs. Lincoln’s influence proved the more powerful, especially after the sharp- eyed Lincoln noticed an imperfection in the hand- engrossed copy prepared by a scribe and brought to him for his signature earlier in the day. Lincoln sent it back to be recopied and joined the holiday levee as scheduled. Observing him there, one journalist noted: “The President seemed to be in fine spirits and cracked an occasional joke.”