What 1863 proclamation declared enslaved people in rebelling areas to be free?

The Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people in areas rebelling against the United States to be free.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the final proclamation on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. It applied to designated Confederate-held territories, not to every enslaved person in the United States. Enslaved people in border states loyal to the Union and in some already occupied areas were excluded.

The proclamation changed the war’s stated purpose by making emancipation a formal Union objective alongside preserving the nation. It also authorized Black men to serve in the Union Army and Navy, contributing nearly 200,000 Black personnel to the Union war effort.

The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States. That amendment completed the legal work that the wartime proclamation could not accomplish on its own.