WC 94-532 The Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln

The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. In a single stroke, it changed the federal legal status of more than 3 million enslaved persons in the designated areas of the South from "slave" to "free." It had the practical effect that as soon as a slave escaped the control of the Confederate government, by running away or through advances of federal troops, the slave became legally free. Eventually it reached and liberated all of the designated slaves. It was issued as a war measure during the American Civil War. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion. Because it was issued under the President's war powers, it necessarily excluded areas not in rebellion - it applied to more than 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time.

The Emancipation Proclamation outraged white Southerners (and their sympathizers), angered some Northern Democrats, energized anti-slavery forces and undermined forces in Europe that wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy.  Source: Wikipedia

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