What is the relationship between the Confiscation Acts and the Emancipation Proclamation?
Need Help?
We hope your visit has been a productive one. If you're having any problems, or would like to give some feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
For general help, questions, and suggestions, try our dedicated support forums.
If you need to contact the Course-Notes.Org web experience team, please use our contact form.
Need Notes?
While we strive to provide the most comprehensive notes for as many high school textbooks as possible, there are certainly going to be some that we miss. Drop us a note and let us know which textbooks you need. Be sure to include which edition of the textbook you are using! If we see enough demand, we'll do whatever we can to get those notes up on the site for you!
I think I know, but if anyone thinks differently, please say so.
I think that the confiscation acts didn't have as much of an impact as the Emancipation Proclimation seeing as how they only affected black confederate soldiers (the first) and the slaves of officials in areas of union occopation (the second). That's really the only difference I see though.
My sources:
http://www.blackseek.com/bh/2001/161_confiscation.htm
http://www.britannica.com/Blackhistory/article.do?nKeyValue=25837
[=RoyalBlue][=Comic Sans MS]
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It
Essentially the Confiscation Act of 1862 and the Emancipation Proclamation were one and the same, expressing the exact same thing, but introduced at different time periods, to make a long story short. The Confiscation Act of 1862(probably what your history teacher is talking about) stated that all slaves of those supporting the rebellion were to be forever free. It essentially emancipated the slaves of the states or parts of states that were participating in the rebellion. The Emancipation Proclamation expressly stated those same terms. In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves, as we were falsely told throughout Elementary School. It freed the slaves in the areas controlled by the Confederacy. It also explicity omitted the Border States (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware) and the areas of Confederate states under Union control. It was unenforceable. The only real purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was political. Lincoln at that time was in a bind and needed a way to deter English recognition of the Confederacy, keep his armies together under a moral cause, and gain more support from the abolitionists. He elegantly restated the Confiscation Act of 1862 on January 1, 1863. Therefore the Emancipation Proclamation did not say anything new, it did not free any slaves, and was only a propagandist restatement of the Confiscation Act of 1862.
My Sources:
The American Political Tradition:Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth
by Richard Hofstadter(good stuff)