Freedom from above and below

It is the middle of the Civil War, the War over slavery that divided the United States into two opposing sides. While the Confederate and Union soldiers are slugging it out on the battlefield, President Lincoln decides to make a choice that will greatly affect the course of the war. On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves all over America. The south, naturally, refused to recognize Lincoln as their president and therefore was outraged that he would dare try to free slaves, which was a part of their way of life. This week in class, we first analyzed a drawing of Abraham Lincoln with a family of slaves, as he is freeing them. This is an example of freedom from above, where a higher authority, in this case the President, is granting freedom to the enslaved. We then wrote on the drawing what we thought each character would say, for example, Lincoln might say "You and your family are now free peoples of the United States" or something along those lines. We then looked at four Lincoln Documents and analyzed how his opinion changed on the goal of the war as it went on. We also watched a PBS video on slavery in the US.
We also learned about another way that freedom is gained, freedom from below. This is when the enslaved people, usually due to their advantage in numbers, gain freedom by themselves via protests or other means. To analyze this method, we looked at two documents, a letter and a picture. The letter is from a Union officer who explains that slaves who have abandoned their plantations are following the Union troops and making an issue. This is an attempt to get the attention of the government to turn to the issue of slavery, as the soldiers would be slowed down by the runaway slaves. In the picture, it is a depiction of the slaves who worked on Confederate President Jefferson Davis' plantation all leaving and going to a Union camp. These both are examples of freedom from below, as the slaves are trying to become free by their own means and taking action. But when the slaves were eventually freed, was it because of freedom from above or below?
In 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, stating that all slaves in the United States were free. Up until this point, the Union was being defeated overall in the war. Lincoln knew he had to wait until they won a considerable victory in the war, otherwise it would make the Proclamation look like a final attempt at coming back into the war. Instead, it appeared as a new motivation for the Union when they turned the tide of the war. Since all slaves were free in the North, they were no longer fighting to keep the Union together, but to free the slaves everywhere. Now, since the South did not recognize Abraham Lincoln as their president, they did not recognize the Emancipation Proclamation, and would not free their slaves. In fact, they were outraged! How dare the North try to change their way of life. While this was happening, slaves everywhere had heard the news and began to leave plantations everywhere. This may have greatly influenced Lincoln's actions, as the complaints from Union officers eventually worked their way up to him. It wasn't until the battle of Gettysburg that President Lincoln said the famous speech, The Gettysburg Address, starting with the famous quote, "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." This is often acknowledged as the moment when the slaves were freed and the war over. It may seem as though the slaves were entirely freed by Lincoln's actions, however the slaves did have a large role in harassing Union soldiers to bring Lincoln's attention to the issue of slavery and giving the war a new goal. When the slaves were freed, it was freedom from above and below.