The University of North Carolina Press

248 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 20 illus., notes, index

The Steven and Janice Brose Lectures in the Civil War Era

Cloth

ISBN  978-0-8078-3316-2

Published: November 2009

Lincoln’s Proclamation

Emancipation Reconsidered

Edited By William A. Blair and Karen Fisher Younger

Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is popularly regarded as a heroic act by a great American president. Widely remembered as the document that ended slavery, the proclamation in fact freed slaves only in the rebellious South (and not in the Border States, where slavery remained legal) and, effectively, only in the parts of the South occupied by the Union. Questions persist regarding Lincolns moral conviction and the extent to which the proclamation truly represented a radical stance on the issue of freedom.

The eight distinguished contributors to this volume assess the proclamation by considering not only aspects of the presidents decision making, but also events beyond Washington. The proclamation provides a launching point for new insights on the consequences and legacies of freedom, the engagement of black Americans in their liberation, and the issues of citizenship and rights that were not decided by Lincoln's document. Together the essays portray emancipation as a product of many hands, best understood by considering all the various actors, the place, and the time.

Contributors:

William A. Blair, The Pennsylvania State University

Richard Carwardine, University of Oxford

Paul Finkelman, Albany Law School

Louis Gerteis, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Steven Hahn, University of Pennsylvania

Stephanie McCurry, University of Pennsylvania

Mark E. Neely Jr., The Pennsylvania State University

Michael Vorenberg, Brown University

Karen Fisher Younger, The Pennsylvania State University

About the Author

William Blair is professor of U.S. history and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He is author of Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South (UNC Press). Karen Fisher Younger is managing director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center and managing editor of the journal Civil War History.