The Emancipation Proclamation

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a wartime executive order during the American Civil War. It declared enslaved people free in designated areas still in rebellion against the United States. Its reach was limited: it did not apply to loyal slaveholding border states, and some areas of Confederate states under Union control were exempted. Enforcement depended on the advance of Union authority.

The proclamation made emancipation an explicit Union war objective and authorized the recruitment of Black men into the armed forces. It therefore changed both the political meaning of the conflict and participation in it. For students of American history and legal change, the document shows how presidential wartime power intersected with the struggle against slavery. It helped prepare the way for nationwide abolition, but did not itself abolish slavery throughout the country.