In this installment of "Freedom Train Tales," Dr. Willis Dunbar discusses the circumstances surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation and its effects. Dunbar describes President Abraham Lincoln as a pragmatic man rather than an idealistic one and makes the argument that Emancipation was as much about stopping Great Britain from recognizing the Confederacy and bringing northern abolitionists into agreement with the Union as it was about ending slavery or freeing slaves. Dunbar also talks about the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation on the war, the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments to U.S. Constitution and the various racist laws the South implemented in an attempt to restore white Southerners power.
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