Emancipation Proclamation

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 95, an executive order and presidential proclamation during the American Civil War. This document changed the legal standing of over 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the Confederate states that had seceded, declaring them free. Once enslaved people escaped their captors—either by reaching Union lines or through the advance of federal troops—they became permanently free. The proclamation also allowed former slaves to enlist in the United States armed forces. It played a key role in ending slavery in the country.

Lincoln had previously issued a preliminary version, Proclamation 93, on September 22, 1862. That document stated that as of January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in any state or part of a state in rebellion against the United States would be forever free. The final proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, specified that Lincoln, as Commander-in-Chief during an armed rebellion, ordered that all enslaved people in the designated rebellious states and parts of states were free. It listed ten of the eleven seceded states—Tennessee was under Union control—and declared that suitable former slaves would be accepted into military service. Lincoln described the act as one of justice, warranted by the Constitution and military necessity.

The proclamation applied to more than 3.5 million of the nation’s 4 million enslaved people. It did not cover states that had not seceded, nor parts of Virginia under Union control and certain Louisiana parishes thought to be pro-Union. Between 25,000 and 75,000 enslaved people were immediately freed in areas of the Confederacy already held by the U.S. Army. In regions still in rebellion, the proclamation could not be enforced directly, but as Union forces took control, it provided the legal basis for freeing over three and a half million enslaved people by the war’s end.

The proclamation enraged white Southerners and their supporters, who feared it would spark a race war. It energized abolitionists and discouraged European powers from intervening on behalf of the Confederacy. It lifted the spirits of African Americans, both free and enslaved, encouraging many to escape slavery and join Union lines, where many enlisted in the Union Army. The document became historic because it reframed the Civil War from a fight to preserve the Union into one focused on ending slavery, setting a course for how the nation would be reshaped after the conflict.

The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To abolish slavery nationwide, Lincoln required Reconstruction plans for Southern states to include laws ending slavery (which happened during the war in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana). He also encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) and pushed for the 13th Amendment. The Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, the House on January 31, 1865, and ratification by three-fourths of states was completed on December 6, 1865. The amendment made slavery and involuntary servitude unconstitutional, except as punishment for a crime.

The U.S. Constitution of 1787 did not use the word “slavery” but included provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise allocated congressional representation and Electoral College votes based on the whole number of free persons plus three-fifths of all other persons. The Fugitive Slave Clause stated that a person held to service in one state could not become free by escaping to another. Article I, Section 9 allowed Congress to ban the importation of persons after 1808. Under the Fifth Amendment, slaves were treated as property, a view reinforced by the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857. Slavery was also upheld by a culture of white supremacy. Between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery, but no Southern state did, and the South’s enslaved population grew to nearly four million.