7.2Emancipation

At first Lincoln framed the war narrowly, as a fight to preserve the Union, not to end slavery. But as the conflict deepened, emancipation became both a moral aim and a military strategy. The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) declared enslaved people in Confederate-held areas to be free.

The proclamation transformed the war into a struggle for freedom and cleared the way for Black men to serve in the Union Army; nearly 200,000 did. Permanent abolition came with the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, which ended slavery everywhere in the United States. The nation's founding contradiction had finally been confronted in blood.