Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union

“The time has come now,” Abraham Lincoln told his cabinet as he presented the preliminary draft of a “Proclamation of Emancipation.” Lincoln’s effort to end slavery has been controversial from its inception—when it was denounced by some as an unconstitutional usurpation and by others as an inadequate half-measure—up to the present, as historians have discounted its import and impact. At the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, Louis Masur seeks to restore the document’s reputa...