On the first day of our most recent unit in Honors History Ten our teacher introduced the phrase; “Freedom from above or below.” Our teacher explained to us that freedom from above results from actions taken by people in positions of power. Freedom from below is the result of actions by common people who have minimal power. The essential question for this Civil War unit was: “Who gave freedom to the enslaved Americans? Was it primarily freedom from Above or Below?” To help answer this question our class looked over several documents about Abraham Lincoln and taking notes on a couple of Civil war video clips.
The Lincoln documents we analyzed were an Open Letter to Horace Greely, The Emancipation Proclamation, The Gettysburg Address, and An Excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. In the Emancipation proclamation Lincoln states, “and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons.” This quote shows that Lincoln felt that Freedom came from above because he is using people in power like the military and navy to help make sure that the slaves are freed. In the excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Lincoln states, “All knew that this interest (Slavery) was somehow the cause of the war.” This quote was a big deal because it was the first time that Lincoln said that the Civil War was the cause of slavery. Lincoln went on to make freeing the slaves his main goal for the rest of his life.
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| Abe Lincoln in Freedom to the Slaves |
The First piece of History we viewed which supported the idea that freedom came from below was an engraving titled, “Slaves from the Plantation of Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrive at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi.” The descriptive titles says it all. Many slaves who belonged to this Confederate President left the plantation to go to an army camp set up by the Union. This was not ordered by the Union and the slaves did it by themselves. Slaves began to frequently abandon their plantations and go to Union army camps. Members of the Union army were caught off guard by the amount of slaves leaving their plantations. These slaves were flooding cities and causing complaints around the south. These complaints had to be dealt with by people of power and they made people aware of the issue of slavery.
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| Engraving of Slaves Leaving Plantation |
