Which U.S. president issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863?

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Lincoln issued the final proclamation on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. It declared enslaved people in the Confederate states still in rebellion to be free. The measure was both a war action and a major statement of Union policy against slavery.

The proclamation did not immediately end slavery everywhere in the United States. It excluded loyal slave states and certain areas already under Union control. It also did not apply to every enslaved person until later constitutional and military developments. Its terms allowed Black men to join the Union armed forces.

The proclamation changed the purpose and international meaning of the war, making emancipation a central Union goal. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States. That amendment completed the nationwide legal end to slavery begun by wartime emancipation policy.