Barriers to a War of Abolition, 1861

• Union war aims didn’t include emancipation or abolition at first

  • some “radical” Republicans wanted a war against slavery

  • Lincoln and most other federal officials were unconvinced

• key constitutional and political obstacles:

  • Constitution sanctioned chattel slavery and guaranteed private property

    • chattel slavery: most common form of slavery known to Americans which allowed people (considered legal property), to be bought, sold, and owned, forever

    • President and Congress couldn’t abolish slavery themselves

    • constitutional amendment necessary

  • most of northern public didn’t support abolition

  • US government needed to maintain loyalty of Border South states

• Union policy at first: non-interference

  • no aid to runaways

  • respect civilian property (including slaves)

Self-Emancipation and The Civil War

• self-emancipation: act of an enslaved person freeing him or herself from the bondage of slavery

• 500,000 people fled slavery during the war

  • many traveled to Union lines

  • they forced Union leaders to act

• Union leaders gradually embraced emancipation as a war strategy

  • first, via decisions by field officers (often overturned)

  • later, in official policies by Congress and War Department

Refugees, “Contrabands”, The Union Army

• May 1861, Fortress Monroe, VA

  • 3 enslaved men fled work on rebel fortifications near Hampton Roads

  • requested US Army’s protection

• General Benjamin Butler declared them “contraband of war” and refused to return them to the rebels

  • key legal loophole: enslaved labor was a Confederate war resource

  • could be legally seized

• May 30, 161, war department formalized Butler’s decision

• first in a long chain of federal policy measures

• limited scope:

  • only for people fleeing work on rebel war efforts

  • “contrabands” weren’t freed: used as labor for the US Army

• by June 1861, 900+ enslaved people had fled to the Fortress Monroe

• the “Grand Contraband Camp” at Fortress Monroe

  • 25,000 residents by 1865 (5th largest city in rebel states

  • largest of many similar sites