Summary
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declaring that all enslaved people in Confederate-held territory were legally free. It did not immediately free anyone, as it only applied to areas outside Union control, and specifically exempted border states and Confederate areas already occupied by Union forces. The Proclamation fundamentally transformed the Civil War from a conflict about preserving the Union into a war for human freedom, making the abolition of slavery a central Union war aim.
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