Bennett, Lerone. Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., 1999.

Franklin, John Hope. The Emancipation Proclamation. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963.

Goldwin, Robert A., ed. 100 Years of Emancipation, Essays by Harry V. Jaffa et al. Chicago: Rand McNally,1964.

Guelzo, Allen C. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

Trefousse, Hans Louis. Lincoln's Decision for Emancipation. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.

You have a wide variety of supplementary materials online. For images of contemporary manuscript and printed texts of the Proclamation, go to the National Archives online “exhibit” with images of all five pages of the official copy of the document:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/ emancipation_proclamation/index.html

Also see these items in the Gilder Lehrman Collection:

GLC05508.272 Broadside. Emancipation Proclamation (Rufus Blanchard edition), c. 1863. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id= GLC05508.272
GLC00742 Signed Emancipation Proclamation (California printing, Cheesman copy). http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC00742
GLC01024 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (General Orders no. 139). http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC01024
GLC00004 Signed Emancipation Proclamation. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC00004
GLC04654 Broadside. Facsimile of the Emancipation Proclamation (printed by Edward Mendel, Chicago). http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC04654

The Gilder Lehrman Collection also includes an image of an engraving after Francis B. Carpenter’s painting of the first reading of the Proclamation in Lincoln’s cabinet:

GLC02598 Print. The first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation (engraving after Carpenter),1866. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC02598

For a conveniently transcribed text of the Proclamation, see:

http://www.toptags.com/aama/docs/emac.htm

The Lincoln Online site’s page of online educational resources includes several good recommendations for lesson plans on the Emancipation Proclamation:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/education/curriculum.htm

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) Slavery and the Making of America Website offers a good section on emancipation. In fact, the whole site is invaluable:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/freedom/history.html

And you’ll find this “Mr. Lincoln and Freedom” timeline mounted by the Lincoln Institute a convenient reference tool:

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/content_inside.asp? ID=63&subjectID=4

For emancipation in Delaware and the District of Columbia, start with these books:

Clark-Lewis, Elizabeth, ed. First Freed: Washington, D.C. in the Emancipation Era. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 2002. An exceptionally interesting collection of articles on African American life in the American capital during the Civil War.

Wiggins, William H. O Freedom!: Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987. The history of the celebrations of Emancipation Day, held on April 16, is a compelling story of African American traditions.

Williams, William Henry. Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865. Wilmington, DE.: SR Books, 1996

Online, you may want to use these sources:

District of Columbia’s webpage on celebration of Emancipation Day:

http://os.dc.gov/os/cwp/view,a,1207,q,608975,pm,1.asp

Lincoln’s message to Congress on enactment of the D.C. Emancipation Act:

http://www.toptags.com/aama/docs/dcemancp.htm

As for the “incorporation doctrine” by which American courts interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to extend the U.S. Bill of Rights to states, you can start with this entry in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_doctrine

And you may want to continue with the excellent chapter on the doctrine in this book:

Levy, Leonard Williams. Seasoned Judgments: The American Constitution, Rights, and History. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

These books are good introductions to the Confiscation Acts of 1861-62:

Siddali, Silvana R. From Property to Person: Slavery and the Confiscation Acts, 1861-1862. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.

Syrett, John. The Civil War Confiscation Acts: Failing to Reconstruct the South. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.

Moving on to the attempts of individual Union military commanders to advance emancipation, you can begin with these biographies of Frémont and a reprint of his Memoirs:

Chaffin, Tom. Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire. New York: Hill and Wang, 2002.

Rolle, Andrew F. John Charles Frémont: Character as Destiny. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Frémont, John Charles, 1813-1890. Memoirs of My Life. With a new introduction by Charles M. Robinson III. New York: Cooper Square Press.

The Gilder Lehrman Collection Website offers an image, transcription, and notes for this fascinating letter from Lincoln to David Hunter:

Lincoln to Hunter:
GLC01212 Signed letter to General David Hunter about the command of the Department of the West and strategy suggestions.

And this website provides transcriptions of significant documents relating to the Frémont and Hunter emancipation programs:

http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/FHL_POL.HTM

Lincoln’s relationship with George McClellan was never easy. For an introduction to the broad problem of command of the Union Army, you can’t beat this classic:

Catton, Bruce. Mr. Lincoln's Army. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962, 1951.

For biographical material on McClellan, try these books:

Rafuse, Ethan Sepp. McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Sears, Stephen W. George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988.

For briefer, online sketches of McClellan try the Wikipedia entry and its links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._McClellan

In this lesson plan from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, Henry Rhodes examines the question: “Lincoln, the Great Emancipator?”

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1985/5/85.05.03.x.html

Along with ending slavery in Confederate-controlled territory, the Proclamation exhorted African Americans to enlist in the Union Army. This PBS Website has good suggestions for exploring the implications of this fact:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/atwar/es_aaregiments.html