Lincoln feared that it would make the North and his government look weak. He wanted to wait until the Union was doing better so that it would look like he was freeing the slaves because it was the right thing to do, not because he felt that he had to do it in order to keep from losing the war.

On July 22, 1862, Lincoln presented a proclamation to his Cabinet, calling for the gradual abolition of slavery. In the midst of a summer of Union battle losses, Lincoln decided to postpone issuing this document until he could speak from a position of strength following a significant military victory.

Lincoln wanted to deprive the South of its labor force, and hoped many of the freed slaves of the south would migrate north and join the Union Army. So after Antietam victory, he issued the proclamation freeing the slaves in the South, but not in the Northern “border” states.

The Effect: After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued thousands of slaves were freed from ten Confederate states that were in rebellion. The Proclamation also allowed African Americans to join the Union army and help fight the Confederates which increased the Union’s numbers by about 200,000.

It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union’s available manpower.

The correct answer is C) keeping Britain from supporting the Confederacy. What was not a result of the Emancipation Proclamation was “keeping Britain from supporting the Confederacy.” President Lincoln was desperately in need of good news at the battlefront of the Civil War.

“They did not approve of slaves being set free” and “They believed the war was about secession” were the two ways that the Northerners responded to the Emancipation Proclamation.

It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union’s available manpower. The Proclamation also prevented European forces from intervening in the war on behalf of the Confederacy.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically.

The purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was to free enslaved people to join the Union, to beat and punish the South.