Lincoln wasn't the first to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. A Governor of Virginia loyal to the Union did it first. In 1775.
Lord Dunsmore, the Royal Governor, pronounced emancipation of the slaves from his ship on the James River. Which was just about as far as his ability to govern extended, since the patriots had run him out of Williamsburg.
But throughout the War the Redcoats regularly freed slaves from their masters, and impressed them into Royal service. At one point the Rebel Governor of Virginia, one Thomas Jefferson, complained to General Washington about this turn of events, seeing as how his own people had been so liberated. Apparently no one had bothered to inform Mr Jefferson that, according to Claremont College, he had already freed them when he penned the Declaration some time earlier.
It's fortunate for Governor Jefferson and General Washington that Abraham Lincoln hadn't arrived on the scene yet, as he surely would have helped the Redcoats to burn Mt Vernon and Monticello to the ground, and to imprison their owners as traitors. War is Hell, and the Lincoln cultists would surely approve of Washington and Jefferson receiving the fate their hero favored for rebellious, disloyal slaveowners. |
