Emancipation Proclamation

January 1, 1863 · Washington, D.C.

Abraham Lincoln's executive order of 1 January 1863 freed more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states and authorized Black enlistment in U.S. armed forces. It recast the Civil War from a struggle to preserve the Union into one focused on ending slavery, setting the course for the Thirteenth Amendment.

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