Emancipation Proclamation, edict issued by U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, that freed the slaves of the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union.

Emancipation Proclamation Emancipation Proclamation, 1863. NARA

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Before the start of the American Civil War, many people and leaders of the North had been primarily concerned merely with stopping the extension of slavery into western territories that would eventually achieve statehood within the Union. With the secession of the Southern states and the consequent start of the Civil War, however, the continued tolerance of Southern slavery by Northerners seemed no longer to serve any constructive political purpose. Emancipation thus quickly changed from a distant possibility to an imminent and feasible eventuality. Lincoln had declared that he meant to save the Union as best he could—by preserving slavery, by destroying it, or by destroying part and preserving part. Just after the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862) he issued his proclamation calling on the revolted states to return to their allegiance before the next year, otherwise their slaves would be declared free men. No state returned, and the threatened declaration was issued on January 1, 1863.

Emancipation Proclamation, first reading The first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, engraving by A.H. Ritchie, 1866. Seated from left to right: Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Pres. Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Attorney General Edward Bates. Standing from left to right: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith, and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. LC-DIG-pga-02502)

Emancipation Proclamation Heavily illustrated chromolithograph of the Emancipation Proclamation, published about 1888. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-pga-02797)

As president, Lincoln could issue no such declaration; as commander in chief of the armies and navies of the United States he could issue directions only as to the territory within his lines; but the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to territory outside of his lines. It has therefore been debated whether the proclamation was in reality of any force. It may fairly be taken as an announcement of the policy that was to guide the army and as a declaration of freedom taking effect as the lines advanced. At all events, this was its exact effect.

Emancipation Proclamation Man reading a newspaper report of the Emancipation Proclamation, painting by Henry Louis Stephens, c. 1863. Henry Louis Stephens/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (CaLC-USZC4-2442)

Its international importance was far greater. The locking up of the world’s source of cotton supply had been a general calamity, and the Confederate government and people had steadily expected that the English and French governments would intervene in the war. The conversion of the struggle into a crusade against slavery made European intervention impossible.

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The Emancipation Proclamation did more than lift the war to the level of a crusade for human freedom. It brought some substantial practical results, because it allowed the Union to recruit Black soldiers. To this invitation to join the army the Blacks responded in considerable numbers, nearly 180,000 of them enlisting during the remainder of the war. By August 26, 1863, Lincoln could report, in a letter to James C. Conkling, that “the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion.”

Two months before the war ended—in February 1865—Lincoln told portrait painter Francis B. Carpenter that the Emancipation Proclamation was “the central act of my administration, and the greatest event of the nineteenth century.” To Lincoln and to his countrymen it had become evident that the proclamation had dealt a deathblow to slavery in the United States, a fate that was officially sealed by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.