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American Republicanism · Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
by Abraham Lincoln · The Union's Moral Witness · Civil War America, 1809-1865
The executive act that changed the moral and political meaning of the Civil War.
- Intermediate
- ~5 min read
- 1 chapter guide
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the The Final Proclamation, January 1, 1863 guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
The Day The War Changed Its Claim
On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln turned a warning made one hundred days earlier into an order. In the midst of the Civil War, the executive government committed itself to recognizing and maintaining freedom for people held in slavery within the places he designated as being in rebellion.
The document’s reach is immense and deliberately bounded. It does not abolish slavery everywhere: loyal slave states and named exceptions sit outside its order. Lincoln grounds the act in his authority as commander in chief during rebellion, so the long list of places and exceptions marks the frontier of the power he claims.
Behind the formal repetitions are people whose freedom must become something more than words on a page. The proclamation makes the conduct of federal forces answerable to a new obligation while the war continues. Its language belongs at once to military command and to a struggle over what justice requires.
The opening pages
The Final Proclamation, January 1, 1863
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans,) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth,) and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
Chapter guides · 1
The Final Proclamation, January 1, 1863
Freedom Enters The War Order
Lincoln turns a hundred-day warning into a geographically bounded order for freedom, federal protection and military service.
A declaration with named limits
Lincoln first quotes the promise made in September 1862, then names the states and parts of states he declares in rebellion, listing local exceptions left outside the order. Within those designated places he declares enslaved people free, orders the executive and armed forces to recognize and maintain that freedom, and declares that eligible people so freed will be received into United States armed service.
The reach of war power
The limits are part of the legal claim. Lincoln does not free people in loyal slave states or in the named Union-held exceptions because he presents emancipation as a wartime power against rebellion. Yet the order changes what advancing federal authority must do: freedom is no longer merely promised or left to individual commanders; the government commits to maintaining it.
Justice and military necessity
Lincoln calls the act both a military necessity and an act of justice. Those grounds work together in his claim to authority. He also counsels the people declared free to avoid violence except in self-defense and to work for reasonable wages when allowed. He finally appeals to the judgment of mankind and God's gracious favor, before the proclamation's dated attestation names Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read Emancipation Proclamation?
- About 5 min in total.
- How difficult is Emancipation Proclamation?
- Intermediate. A short proclamation; about 5 minutes of reading.
- Can I read Emancipation Proclamation for free?
- Emancipation Proclamation is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and one chapter guide on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- One chapter guide, written by the Nexus editors; it opens in full here.
About Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States and led the country through the Civil War. His speeches and state papers transformed the meaning of the Union by joining constitutional duty, emancipation, sacrifice, and the unfinished promise of equality.
“Can a republic founded on liberty survive its own contradiction?”
Lincoln reinterpreted the American experiment under extreme pressure. His words turned the Civil War from a struggle over Union alone into a test of whether democratic government and human equality could survive.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. Emancipation Proclamation is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.