Period 1 (1865-1898)
Major Presidents
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Excerpt:
"Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons."
Analysis:
This section of the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important of the entire document. It clearly states which areas of the country are to take this proclamation into effect and what the purpose of it is. It states that all slaves held in those areas are to be freed, which is the entire point of this document.
Excerpt:
"Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons."
Analysis:
This section of the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important of the entire document. It clearly states which areas of the country are to take this proclamation into effect and what the purpose of it is. It states that all slaves held in those areas are to be freed, which is the entire point of this document.
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Excerpt:
"Now, the centennial year of our national existence, I believe, is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundations of the structure commenced by our patriotic fathers a hundred years ago at Lexington. Let us labor to add all needful guarantees for the greater security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion. Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar of the money appropriated to their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school; that neither the state or nation, not both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford to every child in the land the opportunity of a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogma.
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and private schools entirely supported by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain."
Analysis:
This document, in short, declares that church and schools should be two separate entities. Previously, religion was included in education. But Ulysses S. Grant made it so that this was no longer the case. This excerpt from that document summarizes its point very well. Just from these two paragraphs, you can determine what this was trying to do.
Excerpt:
"Now, the centennial year of our national existence, I believe, is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundations of the structure commenced by our patriotic fathers a hundred years ago at Lexington. Let us labor to add all needful guarantees for the greater security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion. Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar of the money appropriated to their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school; that neither the state or nation, not both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford to every child in the land the opportunity of a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogma.
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and private schools entirely supported by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain."
Analysis:
This document, in short, declares that church and schools should be two separate entities. Previously, religion was included in education. But Ulysses S. Grant made it so that this was no longer the case. This excerpt from that document summarizes its point very well. Just from these two paragraphs, you can determine what this was trying to do.
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Excerpt:
I have this afternoon received your note inviting me to attend tomorrow evening the meeting called for the purpose of voicing the opposition of the businessmen of our city to "the free coinage of silver in the United States."
I shall not be able to attend and address the meeting as you request, but I am glad that the business interests of New York are at last to be heard on this subject. It surely cannot be necessary for me to make a formal expression of my agreement with those who believe that the greatest peril would be invited by the adoption of the scheme, embraced in the measure now pending in Congress, for the unlimited coinage of silver at our mints.
If we have developed an unexpected capacity for the assimilation of a largely increased volume of this currency, and even if we have demonstrated the usefulness of such an increase, these conditions fall far short of insuring us against disaster if, in the present situation, we enter upon the dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent silver coinage.
Analysis:
During the debate between the coinage of silver, President Grover Cleveland gave a speech to give his thoughts on the coinage of silver.
Grover Cleveland later became President again after Benjamin Harrison in 1893-1897.
Excerpt:
I have this afternoon received your note inviting me to attend tomorrow evening the meeting called for the purpose of voicing the opposition of the businessmen of our city to "the free coinage of silver in the United States."
I shall not be able to attend and address the meeting as you request, but I am glad that the business interests of New York are at last to be heard on this subject. It surely cannot be necessary for me to make a formal expression of my agreement with those who believe that the greatest peril would be invited by the adoption of the scheme, embraced in the measure now pending in Congress, for the unlimited coinage of silver at our mints.
If we have developed an unexpected capacity for the assimilation of a largely increased volume of this currency, and even if we have demonstrated the usefulness of such an increase, these conditions fall far short of insuring us against disaster if, in the present situation, we enter upon the dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent silver coinage.
Analysis:
During the debate between the coinage of silver, President Grover Cleveland gave a speech to give his thoughts on the coinage of silver.
Grover Cleveland later became President again after Benjamin Harrison in 1893-1897.
William McKinley
William McKinley
Excerpt:
Obedient to that precept of the Constitution which commands the President to give from time to time to the Congress information of the state of the Union and to recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient, it becomes my duty now to address your body with regard to the grave crisis that has arisen in the relations of the United States to Spain by reason of the warfare that for more than three years has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba.
Analysis:
Before the Spanish-American war, Spain did not want to go into war. Cuba had gone out of control with the Cuban revolution, and Spain was trying to maintain peace, but The U.S wanted to go to war. The excerpt above is a part of the war message written by President McKinley.
Excerpt:
Obedient to that precept of the Constitution which commands the President to give from time to time to the Congress information of the state of the Union and to recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient, it becomes my duty now to address your body with regard to the grave crisis that has arisen in the relations of the United States to Spain by reason of the warfare that for more than three years has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba.
Analysis:
Before the Spanish-American war, Spain did not want to go into war. Cuba had gone out of control with the Cuban revolution, and Spain was trying to maintain peace, but The U.S wanted to go to war. The excerpt above is a part of the war message written by President McKinley.
This was a Depiction of the Sinking of the Maine and was the spark to the Spanish American war in which President McKinley declared war and defeated Spain in three months.