What 1863 document declared enslaved people in rebelling Confederate states to be free?

The Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate states to be free on January 1, 1863.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the final proclamation after announcing a preliminary version following the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862. It applied to areas still in rebellion against the United States, not to loyal border states or Confederate areas already under Union control.

The proclamation changed the Civil War’s official purpose by making emancipation a central Union war aim. It also authorized Black men to serve in the Union Army and Navy. Nearly 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors ultimately served in Union forces during the war.

The document did not immediately abolish slavery everywhere in the country. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, permanently prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, with limited constitutional exceptions. That distinction is the most common mix-up between the proclamation and the amendment.