August 6: Lincolns signs Confiscation Act

On this date in History .... August 6, 1861:  

Lincoln signs the Confiscation Act, the first legislative act toward emancipation of slaves. 

The Act recognized that slaves doing the work on a plantation were freeing up the white Southerners to have plenty of time to fight in the war.  Slaves were also used for menial tasks in the war, also enabling the war effort.  

The Act stripped slave owners of any claim to slaves and made them “confiscated property” of the United States.  The Act stated that any slave who worked for “disloyal masters in some form of work against the United States” were free. 

The law was not enforced uniformly with some Union officers returning slaves back over Confederate lines.  Union (Democrat) Gen’l McCook was so “obliging” in returning slaves to their owners that he was praised in Confederate newspapers.

July 16: 2nd Confiscation Act

On this date in History ... July 16, 1862:

Congress passes the 2^nd Confiscation Act to clarify the vague issue of whether slaves were freed under the Confiscation Act of 1861.  

The Act called for any confederate who did not surrender within 60 days would have their slaves freed. There was no action stated for what to DO with the freed slaves, however. The 1862 Act declared that all slaves taking refuge behind the Union lines would be freed. 

The Act did provide a provision for voluntary colonization to a tropical country, but included a clause that required the freedmen to consent to the colonization, a clause that was passed after much controversy in Congress. 

The “emancipation gesture” applied only to rebelling states and any slave owner who could prove loyalty to the Union would get their slaves back.