In the book: “Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War,” author Bruce Levine attempts to rationalize the attempts made by the upper levels of Confederate government towards emancipation of southern slaves. In late 1864 and early 1864, the south began freeing slaves and arming them to fight against the North.
But why would the south who was fighting to preserve slavery emancipate slaves? Levine answers this question by arguing that it was a necessary action directed at preserving the CSA. Like the Union’s actions towards emancipation the CSA were forced to free slaves to use in the war effort. After crushing defeats in early 1864 the south was desperate for manpower, Levine also asserts that there was growing hostility in the south to the institution of slavery caused by the war. Levine notes the massive numbers of slaves who fled the south for Union lines, as a further point that frustrated southerners. Levine argues that the confederacy’s willingness to emancipate slaves was also partially related to the success of black Union regiments against the confederacy.
One of the shortcomings in the southern emancipation plan was the fact that slaves first had to be released from slavery by there owners, and then they had to voluntarily enlist in the Rebel army. Levine argues that because the slaveholder and the slave both had to agree to emancipation, the movement could never muster enough momentum to prove effective to the CSA war effort. Levine believes that a stronger stance on emancipation by the leaders of the CSA would have provided much needed relief to the Confederate Army, and they would have firmly established the movement towards gradual emancipation of slaves through sharecropping and gradually granted freedoms.
The southern actions never freed slaves in bulk; they could have represented a turning point in Southern Slave culture. The willingness of CSA lawmakers to emancipate slaves signaled a definite end to the institution of southern slavery. With the beginning of 1865 we saw the beginning of an end to slavery in America.
Ross, I think Levine does stress that the CSA was driven to desperation by a need for a manpower, but I don’t think he believes “there was growing hostility in the south to the institution of slavery.” Instead, he argues that the Confederacy’s growing sense of peril to the institution of slavery prompted them to consider any means necessary to win the war. But the reason why they never could come to a workable “emancipation” plan was because commitment to the institution of slavery was so strong. So Levine directly disagrees with historians who would see the discussions of emancipation in the Confederacy as evidence of growing antislavery opinion among white Southerners.