ARCHER ALEXANDER

President Abraham Lincoln waited to unveil the proclamation until he could do so on the heels of a Union military success. On September 22, 1862, after the battle at Antietam, he issued a proclamation declaring that all enslaved people shall be considered free in the rebellious states as of January 1, 1863. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation signified Lincoln’s resolve to preserve the Union at all costs, and he rejoiced in the ethical correctness of his decision. Lincoln admitted on New Year’s Day in 1863 that he never “felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper” and he would thereafter be remembered as “The Great Emancipator.”

To the Confederates, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation reinforced their hatred and ultimately inspired John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him on April 14, 1865. When hearing of Lincoln’s death, a formerly enslaved woman named Charlotte Scott, would lead a movement to erect a memorial to “to make a monument to Massa Lincoln, the best friend the colored people ever had”. The Monument was entirely funded and erected by the formerly enslaved, and dedicated as the Emancipation Memorial to Lincoln, in Washington D.C., and is part of the National Park System and may only be removed by an act of Congress. The man chosen to represent all the enslaved is a freedom seeker and “the last fugitive slave” in Missouri named Archer Alexander. Alexander is buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery in St. Louis Missouri and is listed on the National Parks Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Today, Archer Alexander is the National Icon for Emancipation.

Lincoln and his advisors limited the proclamation’s language to slavery in states outside of federal control as of 1862, and those who had failed to address the contentious issue of slavery within the nation’s border states. On January 11, 1865, German born Arnold Krekel, would preside over the Constitutional Convention to abolish slavery in the State of Missouri. For more see  https://mohistory.org/events/missouri-emancipation