Which document did Abraham Lincoln issue on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War?

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. Officially called Proclamation 95, it declared enslaved people in areas still rebelling against the United States to be free.

The proclamation changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in Confederate-controlled territory, although it did not apply to every enslaved person in the country. It also authorized Black men to serve in the Union Army and Navy, helping transform the war’s military and political meaning.

A frequent mix-up is treating the proclamation as the constitutional abolition of slavery. It was a wartime executive order based on Lincoln’s powers as commander in chief. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery nationwide, including in areas that the proclamation had exempted.