Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was a landmark executive order issued by <a href="/article/abraham-lincoln">President Abraham Lincoln</a> on January 1, 1863, during the <a href="/article/american-civil-war">American Civil War</a>. It declared more than 3.5 million enslaved people in the Confederate states to be free, fundamentally changing the nature of the war and paving the way for the eventual abolition of slavery in the United States.