On this day, 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln announced the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It declared slaves in areas “still in rebellion” (most of the Confederacy) would become free. It also provided compensation to slave holders who were loyal and lived in areas still loyal (such as the Border States) or under the control of Union forces. It also gave the Confederate States three months to consider returning to the Union – and if they did so, they would receive similar compensation as those slaveholders still living in the Union.

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation announced policies which take effect on January 1, 1863. So to many observers, North and South, the announcement in September meant nothing. Who was the President of the United States to tell Confederate citizens that their slaves were free? Such a policy seemed impossible to enforce – at least when it was announced in September – after the Union had suffered numerous defeats earlier in the year, and when both sides were still grieving from the fresh shock of the Antietam horrors.

News in the North

The reaction of newspapers in the North ran the gamut.

The Dayton Daily Empire (Ohio), found the measure repugnant.

 

In Cleveland, the editor saw an opportunity for the United States:

Slaves in the South

Should the rebellion continue in its present shape until the 1st of January next, the number of slaves which will on that day be emancipated, under the proclamation of the President will be as follows:

{list of slave populations (illegible) from the states of: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, estimated in Virginia, totaling 3,405,015 from the 1860 census.}

In other words, 3,405,015 tax-payer[s] will be added to the number who contribute to the support of the best government in the world.

– Cleveland Morning Leader, Oct. 6, 1862

In St. Clairsville, Ohio, the Belmont Chronicle triumphed:

Newspaper excerpts from Chronicling America, Library of Congress.