The Emancipation Proclamation and James Baldwin:
A 20th Century Disquisition on Equality
Introduction
The goal of this program is to utilize primary historical documents and other writings to aid in
facilitating conversations and civil discourse on topics that once led to – and in some instances
continue to lead to – sharp schisms in society. By exploring previous moments of division, the
conversations both highlight our history confronting such divisions and provide a framework for
creating a civil discourse around currently divisive issues.
This conversation will focus on the Emancipation Proclamation and equality. The two major
pieces under discussion are Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation and a “letter” written by
James Baldwin nearly one hundred years later. Other documents within provide context for both
Lincoln’s decree and Baldwin’s analysis.
This guide provides four resources to facilitate the conversation. First, it provides several key
topics and questions that can be used to direct both the reading of the primary source material by
individual participants and the subsequent conversation by the group. Second, it provides brief
contextual information aimed to put the primary source material into a broader narrative in
American history. This material is italicized. Third, it provides the primary source material itself
– selections from key documents that have impacted this debate over time. And finally, it
provides direction to additional resources that participants may consult to continue exploring
similar topics.
Guiding Questions for Reading and Discussion
-- What purpose is evident in Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation?
-- Did the Emancipation Proclamation accomplish the purpose set out for it by Lincoln?
-- Did Lincoln’s views of slavery and freedom appear to change over time?
-- Did the Emancipation Proclamation address issues of natural rights or human equality?
-- Did the legacy of the Emancipation Proclamation transcend its original meaning?
-- What role has slavery played in influencing white perceptions toward African Americans more
than a century beyond emancipation?
-- What does James Baldwin mean when he argues that black equality is tied to white people
extricating themselves from the bondage of history?
-- What does James Baldwin mean when he says that if you know from whence you came, there
“is really no limit to where you can go?”
-- Does the persistent inequality that African Americans historically have experienced call into
question the founding principles of the nation as reflected in documents such as the
Declaration of Independence?
-- Why does James Baldwin claim that the country was celebrating one hundred years too early
the Emancipation Proclamation?
Context and Primary Source Materials
Declaration of Independence (1776)
…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness…
*****
From the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution: At the Philadelphia convention, James
Wilson introduced the three-fifths formula as an amendment to the Virginia Plan in reference to
the counting of slaves for apportionment purposes. Ultimately, it became the gist of a complex
formula that was part of the Great Compromise basing both representation and direct taxes.
Madison in Federalist #54 defended the clause as an arbitrary but reasonable compromise that
roughly reflected the anomalous legal status of a slave, a human for certain purposes and a
chattel for others. The slave was “debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants,
which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man.”
United States Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 3 (1787)
…Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be
included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by
adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of
Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons…
*****
From the Dictionary of American History: In 1846, the slave Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet,
sued Irene Emerson, the widow of Scott's former owner, Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon in the U.S.
Army. Scott claimed he was free because Dr. Emerson had taken him from the slave state of
Missouri to Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory (present-day Minnesota), where Congress
had prohibited slavery under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Scott also claimed to be free
because Emerson had taken him to the free state of Illinois.
In 1850, a Missouri trial court declared Scott a free man based on the theory that he had become
free while living at Fort Snelling and in Illinois, and that he had the right to continue being free.
However, in 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned Scott's victory. In 1854, Scott sued
his new owner, John F. A. Sanford, in federal court. Scott sued under a clause in Article III of
the U.S. Constitution, which states that a citizen of one state may sue a citizen of another state in
federal court. Scott argued that if he were free under the Missouri Compromise, he was a citizen
of Missouri and could sue Sanford, a citizen of New York, in federal court. Sanford responded
that Scott could never be considered a citizen "because he is a negro of African descent; his
ancestors were of pure African blood, and were brought into this country and sold as negro
slaves."
U.S. District Judge Robert W. Wells rejected this argument, concluding that if Dred Scott were
free, then he could sue in federal court as a citizen of Missouri. But Scott lost at trial and
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1857, by a vote of 7–2, the Court held that the Missouri
Compromise, under which Scott claimed to be free, was unconstitutional.
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and
sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence
by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and
privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen?
…The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the
same thing. They both describe the political body who...form the sovereignty, and who hold the
power and conduct the Government through their representatives....The question before us is,
whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry]
compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think
they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word
"citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which
that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.
…They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and
altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far
inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…
*****
From Dictionary of American History: President Abraham Lincoln's grant of freedom, on 1
January 1863, was given to slaves in states then in rebellion. In conformity with the preliminary
proclamation of 22 September 1862, it declared that all persons held as slaves within the
insurgent states—with the exception of Tennessee, southern Louisiana, and parts of Virginia,
then within Union lines—"are and henceforth shall be, free." The proclamation was a war
measure based on the president's prerogatives as commander in chief in times of armed
rebellion. Admonishing the freedmen to abstain from violence, it invited them to join the armed
forces of the United States and pledged the government to uphold their new status. Unlike the
preliminary proclamation, it contained no references to colonization of the freed slaves "on this
continent or elsewhere."
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
...That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixtythree, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval
authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or
acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom….
…And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless
in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor
faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received
into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places,
and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of
Almighty God….
*****
From the National Archives (Our Documents): On March 4, 1865, in his second inaugural
address, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of mutual forgiveness, North and South, asserting
that the true mettle of a nation lies in its capacity for charity. He had presided over the nation’s
most terrible crisis. The Civil War began 1 month after he took office and ended 5 days before he
died. It was more bitter and protracted than anyone had predicted, costing more than 600,000
lives. In Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered just over a month before his death, he
spoke about the war as he had come to understand it. The unspeakable savagery that had
already lasted 4 years, he believed, was nothing short of God’s own punishment for the sins of
human slavery.
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865)
…One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the
Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful
interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate,
and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by
war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial
enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has
already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even
before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less
fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each
invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not,
that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been
answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses;
for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we
shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God,
must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to
remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by
whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes
which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we
pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue
until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall
be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether…
*****
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868)
…All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…
****
From Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court: Plessy v. Ferguson is one of the U.S. Supreme Court's
most infamous—and most heavily criticized—decisions. On May 18, 1896, Justice Henry
Billings Brown's majority opinion, joined by six other members of the Court, upheld the
constitutionality of racial segregation in public accommodations (Homer Plessy had sued).
Plessy upheld a Louisiana statute that mandated separate accommodations on a railroad car,
against a challenge that the segregation violated the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition of
slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. Plessy marked the
constitutionalization of racial segregation (known as Jim Crow). Thus, the Supreme Court
confirmed what had already become a social and political reality—the use of law to separate the
races, particularly in the states of the former Confederacy. The Plessy regime of “separate but
equal” (a term that appeared in Justice John Marshall Harlan's dissenting opinion) held sway
Plessy v. Ferguson (Majority Opinion presented by Justice Henry Billings Brown) (1896)
…The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality
of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to
abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political,
equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either…
*****
From Encyclopedia of World Biography: James Arthur Baldwin (1924-1987) achieved
international recognition for his bold expressions of African American life in the United States.
His works include: Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Notes of a Native Son (1955), and
Giovanni's Room (1956). The essay below appeared first in the Progressive and was later
included in the 1963 book, The Fire Next Time.
James Baldwin, My Dungeon Shook, A Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth
Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (1961)
…This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should
perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the
root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future
that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were,
thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal
clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not
expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity…
…Take no one’s word for anything, including mine – but trust your experience. Know whence
you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The
details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what
white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they
do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear…
…There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever
for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy,
is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept
them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in
a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released
from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men
are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people
find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is
to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of
their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun
shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature.
Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's
own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an
immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their
foundations…
…And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall
force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change
it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things
here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard,
James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and
built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and
monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since
Homer. One of them said, "The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains
fell off.”
…You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating freedom one hundred years too soon.
We cannot be free until they are free…
Additional Resources
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.
David W. Blight, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era.
Morris Dickstein, ed., James Baldwin.
John Hope Franklin, The Emancipation Proclamation.
Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America.
Harold Holzer, Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory.
David Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography.
Michael Vorenberg, The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents.