1863: The Civil War and Emancipation
A Divided City and State
The people of Maryland and Baltimore split their allegiance between the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War. However, most Marylanders fought with the Union Army of the North. Between recruitment into the Union Army and large numbers of escapees, slavery in Baltimore during the Civil War declined rapidly (Berlin, Grivno, & Brewer 2007, p. 15; Miller, 2015, p. 267).
The Emancipation Proclamation
1864 Reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation
Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 only freed enslaved persons that were part of the Confederacy. However, as historian Richard F. Miller (2015) noted “Maryland was not exempt from emancipation, particularly of the self-help variety” (p. 268). Maryland did eventually abolish slavery the following year, through Article 24 of its State Constitution (Berlin, Grivno, & Brewer, 2007, p. 31).
Legally abolishing slavery in Maryland allowed African Americans to move closer to claiming their rightful place in the state as equal citizens. However, historians Ira Berlin, Max Grivno, and Herbert Brewer (2007) noted
Emancipation was not the final chapter in the long story of slavery in Maryland. For more than two hundred years, slavery stood at the core of Baltimore life. Slaves grew the tobacco, harvested the wheat, dug the coal, and smelted the iron upon which Baltimore economy rested. (p. 16-7)
Transitioning from a slave-labor to a wage-labor economy remained tenuous at best with African Americans taking the brunt of this transition. The underlying racist attitudes, ideologies, structures and habits of exclusion remained entrenched in the city and across the nation.