What does the emancipation proclamation say?

Answer 1

The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all the slaves in the United States, it only freed slaves that were not living under Union Control (Norths Control). The Emancipation Proclamation also states that black soldiers can fight for the union, at this point the Union were in need of soldiers. Our 16th President Abraham Lincoln issued this Proclamation

Answer 2

It was an urgent wartime measure, aimed at keeping Britain from carrying out its threat to support the Confederacy.

The Proclamation was not a law. It simply 'declared' that all Southern slaves were 'thenceforward and forever free'. In practice, this simply gave the Union armies a licence to liberate slaves in any territory they occupied. (Slavery in the four states of the Upper South, which had stayed loyal, was allowed to continue.)

The message was chiefly aimed at free nations abroad, signalling that the war was now an official crusade against slavery, and that they could not grant recognition to the Confederacy or send military aid, without looking pro-slavery themselves.

Lincoln had been wanting to issue his Proclamation all through the summer of 1862, when Lee was scoring one triumph after another in Virginia - with the British watching carefully to see whether the Confederacy was a viable nation.

But if he had issued it on the heels of a string of Southern victories, it would sound like a desperate measure (which it partly was), and not carry conviction.

It was the unexpected Northern win at Antietam in September 1862, that gave Lincoln the credibility to issue it at last. The British backed off. The Proclamation had achieved its principal aim.

Answer 3

He declared that slaves in rebellious states were free.