What proclamation issued by Lincoln freed slaves in Confederate states?

The proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln that freed enslaved people in Confederate states was the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln issued the final proclamation on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War.

The order applied to enslaved people in the states and areas still in rebellion against the United States. It did not immediately free every enslaved person in the country: the loyal slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were excluded, as were certain Union-controlled areas. The proclamation rested on Lincoln’s wartime authority as commander in chief.

Lincoln had first announced the measure in preliminary form on September 22, 1862, after the Union claimed victory at Antietam. The final order also authorized Black men to serve in the Union armed forces, helping transform the war and strengthening the Union military.

A common mix-up is saying that the proclamation itself abolished slavery everywhere. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, completed that nationwide legal abolition. The proclamation nevertheless changed the war’s purpose and helped make emancipation a central Union objective.