HIS 306 African American History

You have been divided into two groups. Group A will support gradual emancipation position. Group B will support immediate emancipation. To participate in the debate, you need to research both positions. The required work will help you. Who will you be in the debate? Your character does not have to be an actual historical figure.

 

You can be, for example, journalist, politician, teacher, a domestic servant or a sharecropper. Just make sure that you ground your analysis in academic sources and you demonstrate you have done all the required work by integrating it into your debate positions.

 

Stay in character for your responses means if you say you are a certain name than each response should have this person's name or that of the person your are corresponding with in each response is part of the debating. Also no modern day history facts should be used...in this debate Lincoln is still alive...meaning discussing the Emancipation Proclamation is not appropriate but the rumor of it can be discussed...remember the Emancipation Proclamation was a gradual emancipation document because it only freed slaves in the Confederate states but allowed Union states to still continue slavery.

In this debate session, the topic of discussion is about the gradual emancipation of the Emancipation Proclamation (Chambers Jr, 2013).  This proclamation had been signed by Abraham Lincoln in the year 1863 to stop the American Civil War. There are two types of emancipation programs like the gradual emancipation and immediate emancipation. The topic is Lincoln is still alive through his Emancipation Proclamation. This practice was meant to eradicate the practice of slavery from America forever. This was primarily meant to roll out the curse of slavery from the entire country but in reality it had been only applied to the states that were in the rebellion (Chambers Jr, 2013). This incident could be taken as a negative step because the application of this step would prohibit the confederate states to stop the practice of slavery. However, this did not prevent the Union states from continuing the ill practice of slavery. This is regarded as a gradual emancipation process indeed.

On support of that it can be said the battle of Antietam had issues the victory to the Union states. The Union army had been able to drive out all the confederates out of Maryland. The purpose of the war was to free all the slaves in the North (Masur, 2012). The efforts of Lincoln had been effective in the context that the slaveholders did not want to leave their human property in the form of slaves.  Lincoln had begun to convince the slave states that they should withdraw this practice indeed (Masur, 2012). He would compensate all the losses being caused. After they did not abide by this, Lincoln had to apply this forcefully.

References

Chambers Jr, H. L. (2013). Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Executive Power. Md. L. Rev., 73, 100.

Masur, L. P. (2012). Lincoln's hundred days: The emancipation proclamation and the war for the union. Harvard University Press.