geeky"That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
On January 1, 1863, the Proclamation changed the legal status under federal law of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. In fact it did not actually free many slaves in the location where they were located. Slaves in the border states where slavery was allowed were not freed because their states were not in rebellion. The proclamation could not be enforced for the benefit of slaves in the Confederate states. But it did encourage slaves in the Confederacy to attempt to rebel or escape, because as soon as a slave escaped the control of the Confederate government, either by running away across Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, the person was permanently free. Ultimately, the Union victory brought the proclamation into effect in all of the former Confederacy.
The proclamation was directed to all of the areas in rebellion. All segments of the executive branch (including the Army and Navy) of the United States were bound by the pronouncement. It proclaimed the freedom of enslaved people in the ten states in rebellion. Even though it excluded areas not in rebellion, it still applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. Around 25,000 to 75,000 were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place. It could not be enforced in the areas still in rebellion, but as the Union army took control of Confederate regions, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the liberation of more than three and a half million enslaved people in those regions.
Prior to the Proclamation, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required escaped enslaved persons to be either returned to their masters or held in camps as contraband for later return. The Emancipation Proclamation had a tremendous strategic effect on the war. It outraged white Southerners and their sympathizers. It energized abolitionists, and it made those Europeans that wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy more hesitant to do so for fear of being seen as supporting slavery, an institution that had been abolished in most of Europe.
The Proclamation motivated African Americans held in slavery to escape from their captivity and get to Union lines to obtain their freedom, and to join the Union Army. The Emancipation Proclamation changed the dynamic of the Civil War, turning it from a struggle to preserve the Union to one focused on ending slavery. It also set a course for how the nation would be reshaped after the war was over.
The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To ensure the abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., Lincoln also insisted that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require abolition in new state laws. This subsequently occurred during the war in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) and he pushed for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress passed the 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on January 31, 1865, and it was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865, ending legal slavery in the United States.
In December 1863, Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which addressed how the rebel states could reconcile with the Union. Key provisions required those states to accept the Emancipation Proclamation. Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation would be construed solely as a war measure, and would no longer apply once the war was over. In response, Lincoln made a large part of his 1864 presidential campaign a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery uniformly throughout the United States. Lincoln's campaign was bolstered by separate votes in both Maryland and Missouri to abolish slavery in those states. Maryland's new constitution abolishing slavery took effect in November 1864.
After he was re-elected, Lincoln pressed the lame duck 38th Congress to pass the proposed amendment immediately rather than wait for the incoming 39th Congress to convene. In January 1865, Congress sent to the state legislatures for ratification what became the Thirteenth Amendment, banning slavery in all U.S. states and territories. The amendment was ratified by the legislatures of enough states by December 6, 1865, and proclaimed 12 days later.