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Description
In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln declared that as president he would “have no lawful right” to interfere with the institution of slavery. Yet less than two years later, he issued a proclamation intended to free all slaves throughout the Confederate states. When critics challenged the constitutional soundness of the act, Lincoln asserted that he was endowed “with the law of war in time of war”. This book contends Lincoln was no reluctant emancipator; he wrote a truly radical document that treated Confederate slaves as an oppressed people rather than merely as enemy property. In this respect, Lincoln's proclamation anticipated the intellectual warfare tactics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Publication Date
2007
Publisher
The University Press of Kentucky
Place of Publication
Lexington, KY
ISBN
978-0-8131-2463-6
eISBN
978-0-8131-7273-6 (pdf version)
eISBN
978-0-8131-3821-3 (epub version)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813124636.001.0001
Keywords
Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, Confederate states, Slaves, Warfare, Inaugural address, President
Disciplines
United States History
Recommended Citation
Carnahan, Burrus M., "Act of Justice: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War" (2007). United States History. 174.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/174
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