What was the Emancipation Proclamation?

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 that declared all enslaved people in the Confederate states still in rebellion against the Union to be then, thenceforward, and forever free. Lincoln issued the order under his Civil War powers as Commander in Chief and announced his intention in a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, five days after the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 had given the Union the qualified victory Lincoln had been waiting for. The final Proclamation listed the states and parts of states in rebellion and declared their enslaved residents free.

It applied to about 3.5 million of the approximately 4 million enslaved people in the country at that time. The Proclamation did not free enslaved people in the four loyal slave states (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) or in parts of Confederate states already under Union control, since the legal basis was wartime authority over rebellion.

The Proclamation had several specific effects. First, it transformed the Civil War from a war to preserve the Union into a war for emancipation as well, changing both its moral character and its diplomatic implications. After January 1863 Britain and France could not intervene on the Confederate side without effectively defending slavery, and antislavery sentiment in those countries killed any prospect of foreign recognition for the Confederacy.

Second, the Proclamation authorized the recruitment of Black soldiers into the Union Army and Navy. About 180,000 Black men served in the United States Colored Troops by war's end, fighting in major engagements including the Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, where the 54th Massachusetts under Colonel Robert Gould Shaw made its famous charge. Black soldiers comprised about 10 percent of Union forces by 1865.

Third, the Proclamation immediately freed enslaved people who reached Union lines, intensifying the steady flow of self-emancipated refugees that had begun in 1861. By war's end, perhaps 500,000 enslaved people had freed themselves by reaching Union forces.

Fourth, the Proclamation pointed toward complete abolition. Lincoln pressed Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which the House approved on January 31, 1865 and the states ratified on December 6, 1865, eight months after Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865. The amendment ended slavery permanently and constitutionally in all states.

Lincoln himself called the Proclamation the central act of his administration and the great event of the nineteenth century. Black communities celebrated January 1, called Emancipation Day or Watch Night, in churches and gatherings across the country. The original document is held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.