Frederick Douglass believed the Proclamation was significant because the North had respect toward their country, the men and women civilized in it, and the men who fight for it.
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, stated that on January 1, 1863 all slaves residing in every part of the South still in rebellion would be declared “then, thenceforward, and forever free” (Dudley 166-167). Mr. Douglass’ first view is on the Union men in the battlefields argument on the Emancipation Proclamation (Dudley 157). “Any man who leaves the field on such a ground will be an argument in favor of the proclamation, and will prove that his heart has been more with slavery than with his country.” (Dudley 167). Mr. Frederick, in this quote, is saying that these men in the fields who leave, prove that they are not cut out to be a Union