Issued on January 1, 1863.
Order by President Abraham Lincoln declaring that all slaves shall be forever free throughout the U.S.
It changed the goal of the U.S. Civil War from one designed to hold the North and South together, to a war for “a new birth of freedom,” as Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address.
The declaration led to the 13th Amendment to U.S. Constitution, forever ensuring slavery will never again exist in the United States.