The Emancipation Proclamation: Americans Respond

In October, BHS opened an exhibition featuring a rare edition of the Emancipation Proclamation. The document, which includes the signature of President Abraham Lincoln, has offered many visitors to our institution an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable events that took place in the United States during the 1860s.

Lincoln did not sign the Emancipation Proclamation in a vacuum. Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs influenced the President's decision and responded to the proclamation with a range of emotions, from jubilation to outright horror.  BHS's exhibition captures the cacophony of opinions in 1863 by highlighting the reactions of twelve Americans to the Emancipation Proclamation in an elegant carved wood installation (below).

Photo by Michel Arnaud

Over the next several months, BHS will also share the reactions of 19th century observers on this blog in a series called "The Emancipation Proclamation: Americans Respond."  The blog will allow us to dig even deeper into the thoughts and experiences of a wide range of Americans during the Civil War. We will learn that many of the most vitriolic condemnations of the proclamation actually came from northerners.  We'll hear from radical abolitionists, a group of anti-slavery reformers who thought the Emancipation Proclamation did not go far enough to ensure civil equality as well as freedom from enslavement.  And we will explore the experiences of freedpeople doing everything they could to seek out freedom and security on the ground.

We hope that this series will offer a glimpse into the complex ideologies that shaped Civil War-era America, and that it will prompt readers to re-examine their definitions of freedom in the 21st century.