For America250, which 1863 proclamation changed the legal status of enslaved people in Confederate states?

The Emancipation Proclamation changed the legal status of enslaved people in Confederate states on January 1, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln issued it during the American Civil War as Proclamation 95.

The order declared enslaved people in areas still in rebellion against the United States to be free. It did not apply to loyal slave states or every area already under Union control, so it did not immediately end slavery throughout the country. Its practical effect expanded as Union armies captured Confederate territory.

The proclamation also authorized Black men to serve in the Union Army and Navy. More than 200,000 African American soldiers and sailors eventually served the Union cause. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery nationwide and completed the legal work that the proclamation had begun.