Emancipation Proclamation

Presidential proclamation and executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863 during the American Civil War, changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. It also authorized former slaves to be received into US armed service and provided the legal framework for liberation as Union armies advanced. The proclamation redefined the war from a struggle to preserve the Union into one focused on ending slavery and set the course for the Thirteenth Amendment.