USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.

Detailed explanation-2: -President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free."

Detailed explanation-3: -It is sometimes said that the Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves. In a way, this is true. The proclamation would only apply to the Confederate States, as an act to seize enemy resources. By freeing slaves in the Confederacy, Lincoln was actually freeing people he did not directly control.

Detailed explanation-4: -It exempted Tennessee and portions of Virginia and Louisiana that were occupied by the Union and left slavery untouched in the border states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri.

Detailed explanation-5: -That was the situation in the country on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation-a long name for a long document (it went on for five pages!). You might have heard that it freed all slaves, but that isn’t true. Only a small number of the country’s 4 million slaves were freed immediately.