January 1 · This Day in America
At the stroke of the new year, in the third winter of a war that has already buried hundreds of thousands, Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation. His hand is sore from a morning of New Year's handshakes; he steadies it so the signature will not look unsure, because, he says, the world will know if it does. The order declares that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be, free. It does not yet reach everyone — the loyal border states are exempt, and freedom must still be won mile by mile by armies. But it changes what the war is for. It opens the ranks of the Union army and navy to Black soldiers, and the freed begin to march as the liberators. In churches across the North, people sit up through the night of December 31 waiting for word. When it comes, they weep and sing.
Source: www.archives.gov
Also on this day · 1892
Ellis Island opens on New Year's Day, and a barge dressed in red, white, and blue carries the steerage passengers of the S.S. Nevada to its dock. First down the gangway is Annie Moore, seventeen, from County Cork, traveling with her two younger brothers to reunite with parents already in New York. An official hands her a ten-dollar gold piece and wishes her a happy new year. Behind her, over the next sixty-two years, twelve million people will follow.
Source: www.statueofliberty.org
“If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”Abraham Lincoln, 1863