The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States president Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. It changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free, and as soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. The Proclamation also allowed former slaves to be received into the armed service of the United States, and it played a significant part in the end of slavery in the United States. Lincoln had issued a preliminary version on September 22, 1862, warning that all persons held as slaves within any state still in rebellion on January 1, 1863 would be freed.
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