Example Speeches and Links
"The Gettysburg Address"
by Abraham Lincoln
"The Emancipation Proclamation"
by Abraham Lincoln
On 1 January 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on the Union side; nor did it affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Naturally, the states in rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation did show Americans—and the world—that the civil war was now being fought to end slavery.
Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A believer in white supremacy, he initially viewed the war only in terms of preserving the Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, however, Lincoln became more sympathetic to the idea. On 22 September 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would become effective on 1 January 1863, in those states still in rebellion. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America—this was achieved by the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on 18 December 1865—it did make that accomplishment a basic war goal and a virtual certainty.
Bibliography
Commager, Henry Steele. The Great Proclamation (1960).
Donovan, Frank. Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation (1964).
Franklin, John Hope, ed. The Emancipation Proclamation (1964).
Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A believer in white supremacy, he initially viewed the war only in terms of preserving the Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, however, Lincoln became more sympathetic to the idea. On 22 September 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would become effective on 1 January 1863, in those states still in rebellion. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America—this was achieved by the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on 18 December 1865—it did make that accomplishment a basic war goal and a virtual certainty.
Bibliography
Commager, Henry Steele. The Great Proclamation (1960).
Donovan, Frank. Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation (1964).
Franklin, John Hope, ed. The Emancipation Proclamation (1964).
"Second Inagural Address"
by Abraham Lincoln
"I Have A Dream"
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
28 August 1963, Washington, DC
"The Speech of Chief Seattle"
by Nez Pierce Chief Seattle
9 January 1855
Translated by William Arrowsmith from the Victorian English of Dr. Henry Smith of Seattle, Washington, as published in the Seattle Star on 29 October 1877.