Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War.
The proclamation, formally called Proclamation 95, declared enslaved people in areas still in rebellion against the United States to be free. It also authorized formerly enslaved men to join the Union armed forces. The measure applied to more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans, although it excluded loyal slave states and certain Union-controlled areas.
Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, after the Union victory at Antietam. The final proclamation followed after the promised period for Confederate states to end their rebellion had expired. Its legal authority rested on Lincoln’s wartime powers as president and commander in chief.
The proclamation did not immediately abolish slavery everywhere. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, permanently prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude except as criminal punishment. The proclamation nevertheless changed the war’s stated purpose and helped make emancipation central to Union policy.