Executive order issued by US President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863, declaring that all enslaved people in the Confederate states still in rebellion were free. It applied only to areas outside Union control and left slavery legally untouched in the loyal border states, so it freed no one immediately by its own force, but it reframed the Civil War as a fight over slavery, authorised the enlistment of Black soldiers into the Union Army, and set the political course that led to the Thirteenth Amendment's abolition of slavery nationwide in 1865.
Facts
Key ProvisionIssued by President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863 under his authority as commander in chief during the Civil War, it declared that enslaved people in the states then in rebellion against the United States were free, though it did not apply to slaveholding border states that had remained in the Union or to Confederate areas already under Union control. It reframed the war's purpose to include ending slavery and authorized the enlistment of Black soldiers into the Union Army, while full, nationwide abolition awaited the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. 1 Classification
Document Type Original Language Connections
Drafted By
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as a wartime executive order under his authority as Commander-in-Chief.
Source Abraham Lincoln (Miller Center)
Influenced By
Decades of abolitionist agitation built the political pressure and moral argument Lincoln drew on in issuing the Proclamation.
Source Emancipation Proclamation (Britannica)
The Dred Scott ruling's denial of Black citizenship and constitutional protection deepened the sectional crisis that led to the Civil War and, within it, the Emancipation Proclamation.
Sources
1. Emancipation Proclamation (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaDocument type, description
Executive order issued by US President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863, declaring that all enslaved people in the Confederate states still in rebellion were free.
- Influenced By: Abolitionist Movement
View the Source 2. Wikidata: Emancipation Proclamation
- Wikidata Q391358, class allow-list match, case-insensitive label variant (w-bbfill-smallsix2-0926/resolve_ci.ps1)
- Wikidata Q391358 via P407 (w-bbfill-smallsix2-0926/propfill_varchar.ps1)
View the SourceU.S. National Archives: Emancipation Proclamation: Transcript
U.S. National ArchivesIn Group: National Declarations, Petitions and Charters of Rights, Page textQuote, In Group: National Declarations, Petitions and Charters of Rights, Page text
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
Abraham Lincoln (Miller Center)
Miller Center, University of VirginiaDrafted By: Abraham Lincoln, Presidential biographyView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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