Q 01/05

The final Emancipation Proclamation took effect on which holiday?

A) Independence Day

B) Thanksgiving

C) Christmas Day

D) New Year's Day

Answer · why

D) New Year's Day

New Year's Day, 1863: Lincoln signed it that afternoon, a hundred days after his warning to the rebel states, and the text began going out over the te...

Q 02/05

Lincoln gave rebel states 100 days' notice to do what?

A) Free slaves

B) Rejoin the Union

C) Pay reparations

D) Ratify an amendment

Answer · why

B) Rejoin the Union

Rejoin the Union: Lincoln later wrote that the states could have turned the order aside 'by simply again becoming good citizens of the United States'....

Q 03/05

Which writer marked the Proclamation's 50th anniversary with the poem 'Fifty Years' in The New York Times?

A) James Weldon Johnson

B) Paul Laurence Dunbar

C) W. E. B. Du Bois

D) Booker T. Washington

Answer · why

A) James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson, author of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing', wrote it as U.S. consul in Corinto, Nicaragua, where a rebellion against the president en...

Q 04/05

Why did Lincoln's arm tremble as he went to sign the final Proclamation?

A) Days without sleep

B) Hours of shaking hands

C) A bout of smallpox

D) A freezing carriage ride

Answer · why

B) Hours of shaking hands

Hours of shaking hands at a White House reception had left his arm almost paralysed, and he feared a shaky signature would look like doubt. 'My whole ...

Q 05/05

Which seceded state did the Proclamation omit because a Union military government ran it?

A) Arkansas

B) Tennessee

C) Louisiana

D) North Carolina

Answer · why

B) Tennessee

Tennessee was omitted; a Union military governor had run it from Nashville since 1862, and the state abolished slavery by its own amendment in Februar...