The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

An Irrepressible Conflict: New York State in the Civil War

This webpage features historical context from scholar Harold Holzer and three categories of exploration: Antebellum New York, the Civil War, and Reconstruction and Legacy. Within each category photographs of artifacts with accompanying text, all from the collections of the New York State Museum, provide a New York State focused view of these pivotal moments in history. The Resources page leads to additional primary sources available from the New York State Library and the New York State Archives. 

Fifteenth Amendment: Education Activities

On February 3, 1870, the United States ratified the 15th Amendment, which allowed all African American men the right to vote. The educational materials in these activities were developed around the ratification of the 15th Amendment. The guide, produced by the New York State Museum, includes several object-inquiry activities, from which teachers can choose those that best suit their students and classroom needs. All can be done as individual, group, of full-class exercises. In each of these activities, students will be asked to consider the guiding questions and use graphic organizers to investigate primary source materials. 

By exploring primary source materials around the topic of national enfranchisement of black American men through the eradication of the 15th Amendment, students will develop a better understanding of the context surrounding this important step in America's history. They will build visual literacy and comfort with historical documents. Students will hone skills necessary to interpret historical texts and primary sources to learn how events long past continue to shape our country and world today.

The First Step to Freedom: Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation Educators' Guide

The education materials in this guide were developed around President Abraham Lincoln's Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, a draft of which is in the collections of the New York State Library in Albany, NY. 

This guide includes several different activities, from which teachers can choose those that best suit their students and classroom needs. All can be done as individual, group, or full-class exercises. In each of these activities, students will be asked the guiding question, "Did the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation pave the way for equal rights for all Americans?" 

By exploring the draft document and the historical context in which it was written, students will develop a better understanding of how ideas and documents can evolve. Students will hone skills necessary to interpret historical texts and primary sources to learn how events long past continue to shape our country and world today. This Educator Guide is a publication from the New York State Museum.

PBS Resource: The Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction

This folder contains interactives, media galleries, videos, and more from PBS LearningMedia. All content is standards-aligned and features guiding questions and tips for classroom use. These items can be shared with your students through direct links or assigned via Google Classroom.

Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of 1862: Primary Source & Student Activity

This activity from ConsidertheSourceNY.org uses glass lantern slides of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 as the primary source for student exploration. It revolves around the essential question 'How does war impact society?" and checks for understanding by identifying the main idea of the document and evaluating the impact of this document on American Society. Free to all registered Consider the Source users, copy the activity to your account to edit or assign to students. Appropriate for upper elementary, middle school, and high school levels.

The Road to Emancipation: Looking for Lincoln

Examine Lincoln’s mixed motivations for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in this video segment (4:38), from the PBS documentary Looking for Lincoln, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and historian David Blight. They conclude that while Lincoln ultimately recognized the moral righteousness of freeing the slaves, his first and primary concern was strategic: it was the best way to rally the North and strike at the heart of the South’s economy. Gates and Blight then join a roundtable discussion of Lincoln scholars debating the legal authority of the Proclamation and its special meaning for African Americans. Produced by the WNET Group and published on PBS LearningMedia.  

By the time the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was drafted, the United States had struggled with the contradictions of slavery and freedom for almost a century.

In 1776, while the Founding Fathers declared freedom from British tyranny and oppression, the enslavement of Africans remained an accepted institution. With the closing of the Atlantic slave trade in 1808, Northern states, including New York, gradually abolished slavery for economic, political, and moral reasons. At the same time, reliance on slave labor in the South deepened as the region's economy exploded with labor-intensive cash crops like tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane. The tremendous wealth generated from cotton further entrenched slavery, both economically and politically. 

Tensions between the North and South simmered for decades. The divide over slavery and its expansion into the West finally erupted into Civil War between slave and free states in 1861. At first, President Lincoln insisted that saving the Union was the war's only purpose. However, on September 22, 1862, five days after the Union victory at Antietam, Maryland, Lincoln, citing his power as commander in chief, issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation as a military order. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, admitting that he never "felt more certain that I was doing right..." This revolutionary document began the process of making abolition the central goal in the war. 

In 1864, Lincoln ran for re-election and won. He made sure his party platform called on Congress to secure the final, formal abolition of slavery (which would lead to ratification of the 13th Amendment in late 1865). The war dragged on until April 9, 1865, when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate troops at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. Six days later, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

As the country mourned the loss of the president, as well as the 750,000 Americans who died during the fighting, a formal process to deal with the aftermath of the war and emancipation began. Soon Blacks across the South organized mass meetings demanding equality before the law, the right to vote, and equal access to schools, transportation, and other public accommodations. Since few in the South or North accepted Black equality, the subsequent years were turbulent.