Name Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order given by President Abraham Lincoln on January Ist, 1863, near the end of the second year of the Civil War, It said that all those people held in slavery by the Confederate states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” The actual order did not free all of the slaves in the United States, however. Al that time there were about four milion slaves in the United States, and Lincoln's order set only about 50,000 of them free immediately. The order only applied to the southern states that had seceded from the Union. It did not apply to the border states which had remained in the Union. Neither did it apply to those Confederate states that had already been defeated by the North. The Civil War had had multiple causes, but by making freedom for all saves dependent upon the Union's victory, the Emancipation Proclamation essentially made the Civil War about slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation also made it legal for African American men to serve as soldiers in the Union Army, and around 200,000 African American men fought for the Union during the second half of the Civil War. = Lincoln gave a lot of thought to the timing of his order, and he chose his moment carefully. After the Union Army defeated the Confederates at Antietam in September, Lincoln felt that the major Union victory would give the order public support. A few days after Antietam, Lincoln announced his intention to issue the Proclamation that was officially released several months later. The Emancipation Proclamation led to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution several years later, which says: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for ctime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” @www.€asyTeacherWorksheets.com