Emancipation Proclamation
Chapter Sixteen Section Three
What was the Emancipation Proclamation?
By the of summer 1862, Lincoln had decided to emancipate all enslaved African Americans in the South. On January 1st, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It said that "all persons held as slaves within any state shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Because it applied only to areas that the Confederacy controlled, it not not actually free anyone.
The Thirteenth Amendment
Republican leaders in Congress prepared a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery in the United States. In 1865 Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, which was ratified the same year by states loyal to the Union. It was the amendment that truly freed slaves.