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.50 Even many of Lincoln s staunchest sup-porters, such as Edward Steers, Jr., editor of The Trial: The Assassinationof President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators, agreed that Bennettis correct in concluding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed few ifany slaves. 51 Most scholars for and against Lincoln cite this passage as oneof the document s greatest weaknesses:Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, byvirtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army andNavy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against theauthority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessarywar measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January,in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, andin accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the fullperiod of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order anddesignate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereofrespectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the follow-ing, to wit:Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St.Bernard, Plaque-mines, Jefferson, St.John, St.Charles, St.James, Ascension, Assumption,Terrebonne, Lafourche, St.Mary, St.Martin, and Orleans, including thecity of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Car-olina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties des-ignated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac,Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, includingthe cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are forthe present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do orderand declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States,and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Exec-utive government of the United States, including the military and navalauthorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said per-sons.52Thus, most historians have conceded that Lincoln freed only the slaves inthe Confederate areas of the country in rebellion where he had no con-trol and that the system of slavery in territories under Union controlremained status quo.Through modern cultural sensibilities, it is under- Six Culture of Honor on Trial During the Civil War 129standable how a literal interpretation of the Emancipation Proclamationmight be perceived as ineffective at best or disingenuous at worst.What has seemed to be missing so far in the twenty-first centurydebate over the relevance of the Emancipation Proclamation is a deepunderstanding of how honor rituals may have been a pivotal influencingfactor on how it was conceived, delivered and perceived at the time.Inthe context of the code of honor, which we know from the Daniel-Elmoreencounter, continued to be a powerful force in the Confederate capital ofRichmond during this period, the real communicational power of theEmancipation Proclamation may have been lost in the passage of time.From this perspective, it seems likely that Lincoln s proclamation was lessof a mandate for blacks, but rather more of a signal to the South in lan-guage they understood: honor.This is not meant to detract from its powerin bringing the institution of slavery to end, but to reconsider the procla-mation from a communication perspective.In Michael Vorenberg s essay After the Emancipation: Abraham Lin-coln s Black Dream, included in the book Lincoln Revisited, he noted thateven Lincoln himself admitted that the Emancipation Proclamation couldhave been outlawed by the Supreme Court or Congress, or be rescindedby his successor if he failed to be reelected.53 This suggests that this doc-ument was frail from its incarnation.However, similar to the grammar of a duel, the power of the Eman-cipation Proclamation was in its leverage of honor rhetoric.With one sim-ple document, Lincoln reframed the war debate to focus squarely onslavery, not states rights.By utilizing the rhetoric of honor, Lincoln wasseemingly able to unite the conservative and radical elements in the Repub-lican Party to politically endorse abolitionism while sending a clear signalto the South that it would not be allowed to re-enter the Union unless itsubmitted to federal control.This may have been done, in fact, to satisfythe conservative hawkish wing of his party.The same part of his powerbase, in contrast to the abolitionists, endorsed colonization and held fastto its customs of social stratification, which were inherently white suprema-cist through centuries of tradition.But the message of the EmancipationProclamation was clear to the leaders of the South: there would be no rec-onciliation without submission as long as Lincoln was in power.Modern Lincoln critics, such as Bennett, suggest that the Emancipa-tion Proclamation had no pizzazz in its language and that historians havegiven meaning to the document that the author never intended.54 Whatmay be closer to the truth, for better or for worse, is the historical inabil-ity for many readers in the twenty-first century to conceptualize the com- 130 Pistols, Politics and the Pressplexity of nineteenth-century social and cultural forces that compelledLincoln s strategy.This was still an overtly classicist, hierarchical societywhere social status was often determined by birthright.Social mobility waspossible, but often it took demonstrations of violence and honor, eitherby affairs of honor or the military, to achieve gentleman status, a titlereserved in America for only an elite segment of white males.Thus Lincoln had to contend with a majority of the American pub-lic, living in both the North and South, who saw blacks inferior not onlyby their race, but by their class status and birthright as well.Andrew Jack-son, as illustrated in previous chapters, was able to penetrate this Ameri-canized aristocracy by overcoming the latter two obstacles as a politicianand judge, a general in the military and through constant affirmations ofhonor.Lincoln, who was also somewhat of an outsider to this Americanaristocracy, must have been acutely aware of the social forces that blackAmericans had to face.As far as pizzazz, Lincoln s proclamation had an instant, dramaticeffect on the war and reshaping the political debate.Frederick Douglass,a former slave and pioneering intellectual within the abolitionist move-ment, used these words in his autobiography to describe the announce-ment of the proclamation: The effect of this announcement was startlingbeyond description, and the scene was wild and grand.Joy and gladnessexhausted all forms of expression from shouts of praise, to sobs and tears. 55In all fairness, Douglass would later describe the proclamation in his auto-biography as defective and not the document he had hoped it would be.But Douglass, who knew Lincoln, added:For my own part, I took the proclamation, first and last, for a little morethan it purported; and saw I its spirit, a life and power far beyond its let-ter.Its meaning to me was the entire abolition of slavery, wherever the evilcould be reached by the Federal arm, and I saw that its moral power wouldextend much further.It was in my estimation an immense gain to have theWar for the Union committed to the extinction of Slavery, even from amilitary necessity
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