USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -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-2: -From the first days of the Civil War, enslaved people had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically.

Detailed explanation-3: -After the Union Army defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation and warned that if the war did not end by January 1, 1863, the Emancipation would go into effect and the Union would move to destroy slavery in the rebel states forever.

Detailed explanation-4: -Lincoln continued to maintain that he would not interfere with slavery where it existed. However, as a result of Union battlefield losses by July 1862, the President had decided that emancipation was a military necessity. Lincoln knew that many thousands of enslaved people were ready to fight for the Union.

Detailed explanation-5: -By freeing slaves in the Confederacy, Lincoln was actually freeing people he did not directly control. The way he explained the Proclamation made it acceptable to much of the Union army. He emphasized emancipation as a way to shorten the war by taking Southern resources and hence reducing Confederate strength.