“Freedom’s Eve” has given way to the morning of January 1, the day U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln arises in anticipation of signing the Proclamation, only to be distracted by a message from General Ambrose Burnside who, following his defeat at Fredericksburg two weeks earlier, is offended by a brewing rebellion among his military subordinates. Responding to the discord among his army leaders, the President then sits down to sign the Proclamation at 10:45 a.m., only to decide that it needs last minute revisions. Secretary of State William Seward is tasked with drafting a new copy of the statement containing the President’s changes. Lincoln then leaves his office to attend the customary, official and public New Year’s 11:00 a.m. reception in the Blue Room of the White House. For the next three hours, the President receives New Year’s greetings from military officials, foreign dignitaries and others.
Afterwards, in mid-afternoon Lincoln returns to his office to sign the now-finalized Emancipation Proclamation. Having shaken so many hands over the previous hours, his own hand shakes as he picks up the pen to sign the document. Less than a dozen people are present. William Seward’s son, Frederick, recollected what happened next:
The broad sheet was spread open before him on the Cabinet table. Mr. Lincoln dipped his pen in the ink, and then, holding it a moment above the sheet, seemed to hesitate. Looking around, he said:
“I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper. But I have been receiving calls and shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning, till my arm is stiff and numb. Now this signature is one that will be closely examined, and if they find my hand trembled they will say ‘he had some compunctions.’ But anyway, it is going to be done.”
So saying, he slowly and carefully wrote his name at the bottom of the proclamation. The signature proved to be unusually clear, bold, and firm, even for him, and a laugh followed at his apprehension.
Across the hall from the President’s office, presidential aide William O. Stoddard is asked to make two copies of the document. Stoddard latter recalled:
I took the paper and some fresh sheets and went at it mechanically in the ordinary course of business. As I went on, however, from sentence to sentence, word to word, I wrote more slowly and with a queer tremor shaking my nerves. Then I looked up from my work and listened, for far away, nearer, nearer, I could hear the sound of clanking iron, as of breaking and falling chains, and after that the shouts of a great multitude, the laughter and songs of the newly free, and the anger of the fierce opposition, wrath, fury, dismay. For I was writing the first copies from Abraham Lincoln’s own draft of the January 1, 1863, Emancipation Proclamation.
Evening is now descending, and the text of the document is not yet ready for wiring by telegraph. Not until about 8 p.m. does the transmission of the text over the telegraph wires begin.
Meanwhile, in dozens if not hundreds of churches throughout the North and Union-controlled South, tens of thousands of African Americans have long been awaiting word of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Unaware of the various disruptions that prevented President Lincoln from signing the Proclamation early in the day, anxiety has been growing with every passing hour. Has the President followed through with his promise? It is an unspoken thought on the minds of many anxious waiters.
Leading black abolitionist Frederick Douglass is waiting with the congregation of the Tremont Temple Baptist Church of Boston, Massachusetts. He later recalled what happened this day in Boston:
I was in Boston, and its reception there may indicate the importance attached to it elsewhere. An immense assembly convened in Tremont Temple to await the first flash of the electric wires announcing the “new departure.” Two years of war prosecuted in the interests of slavery had made free speech possible in Boston, and we were now met together to receive and celebrate the first utterance of the long-hoped-for Proclamation, if it came, and if it did not come, to speak our minds freely; for in view of the past, it was by no means certain that it would come. The occasion, therefore, was one of both hope and fear. Our ship was on the open sea, tossed by a terrible storm; wave after wave was passing over us, and every hour was fraught with increasing peril. Whether we should survive or perish depended in large measure upon the coming of the Proclamation. At least so we felt. Although the conditions on which Mr. Lincoln had promised to withhold it had not been complied with, yet, from many considerations, there was room to doubt and fear. Mr. Lincoln was known to be a man of tender heart, and boundless patience; no man could tell to what length he might go, or might refrain from going in the direction of peace and reconciliation. Hitherto, he had not shown himself a man of heroic measures, and, properly enough, this step belonged to that class. It must be the end of all compromises with slavery a declaration that thereafter the war was to be conducted on a new principle, with a new aim. It would be a full and fair assertion that the government would neither trifle, or be trifled with any longer. But would it come? On the side of doubt, it was said that Mr. Lincoln’s kindly nature might cause him to relent at the last moment that Mrs. Lincoln, coming from an old slaveholding family, would influence him to delay, and give the slaveholders one other chance.* (*I have reason to know that this supposition did Mrs. Lincoln great injustice.)
Every moment of waiting chilled our hopes, strengthened our fears. A line of messengers was established between the telegraph office and the platform of Tremont Temple, and the time was occupied with brief speeches from the Honorable Thomas Russell of Plymouth, Miss Anna E. Dickinson (a lady of marvelous eloquence), the Reverend Mr. Grimes, J. Sella Martin, William Wells Brown, and myself. But speaking or listening to speeches was not the thing for which the people had come together. The time for argument was passed. It was not logic, but the trump of jubilee, which everybody wanted to hear. We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky, which should rend the fetters of four million of slaves; we were watching, as it were, by the dim light of the stars, for the dawn of a new day; we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries. Remembering those in bonds as bound with them, we wanted to join in the shout for freedom, and in the anthem of the redeemed.
Eight, nine, ten o’clock came and went, and still no word. A visible shadow seemed falling on the expecting throng, which the confident utterances of the speaks sought in vain to dispel. At last, when patience was well-nigh exhausted, and suspense was becoming agony, a man (I think was Judge Russell) with hasty step advanced through the crowd, and with a face fairly illumined with the news he bore, exclaimed in tones that thrilled all hearts, “It is coming!” “It is on the wires!” The effect of this announcement was startling beyond description, and the scene was wild and grand. Joy and gladness exhausted all forms of expression from shouts of praise, to sobs and tears. My old friend Rue, a colored preacher, a man of wonderful vocal power, expressed the heartfelt emotion of the hour, when he led all voices in the anthem, “Sound the Loud Timbrel O’er Egypt’s Dark Sea, Jehovah hath Triumphed, His People Are Free.” About twelve o’clock, seeing there was no disposition to retire from the hall, which must be vacated, my friend Grimes (of blessed memory), rose and moved that the meeting adjourn to the Twelfth Baptist Church, of which he was pastor, and soon that church was packed form doors to pulpit, and this meeting did not break up till near the dawn of day. It was one of the most affecting and thrilling occasions I ever witnessed, and a worthy celebration of the first step on the part of the nation at its departure from the thraldom of ages.
Sources: “Final Proclamation, January 1, 1863” (link); “The Emancipation Proclamation, An Act of Justice,” National Geographic (link); “Preparation for the Final Proclamation” (link); Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske, 1892, pp. 426ff, from Documenting the American South (link); image (link)
