Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, towit: "That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, 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 1st 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 States 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 supressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day 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, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, 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 Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, 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. And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh. By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. On Jan. 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on the Union side; nor did it affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Naturally, the states in rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation did show Americans-- and the world--that the civil war was now being fought to end slavery. Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A believer in white supremacy, he initially viewed the war only in terms of preserving the Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, however, Lincoln became more sympathetic to the idea. On Sept. 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would become effective on Jan. 1, 1863, in those states still in rebellion. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America--this was achieved by the passage of the 13TH Amendment to the Constitution on Dec. 18, 1865--it did make that accomplishment a basic war goal and a virtual certainty. DOUGLAS T. MILLER Bibliography: Commager, Henry Steele, The Great Proclamation (1960); Donovan, Frank, Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation (1964); Franklin, John Hope, ed., The Emancipation Proclamation (1964). 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Emancipation Proclamation Background
Civil War Exhibits
Civil War Documents

American Civil War DVD Titles

Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom Lincoln and Lee at Antietam covers the entire struggle of the Antietam Campaign. The political concept about why Lincoln needed a Union victory and Lee's need to take the war north were covered as well as the battle.	Gettysburg and Stories of Valor - Civil War Minutes III DVD Box Set This 3-hour documentary captures the scenic beauty of the Gettysburg battlefield, examines rare Civil War artifacts and tells the personal stories of the men who fought in the war.	Biography - Abraham Lincoln Preserving the Union Abe Lincoln's presidency in detail. The emotional tragedy and the humorus side of the man. His thoughts on the early commanders and dicussions with Historians. Pictures and details hard to find in other historical documentaries.	American Experience - Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided Abraham Lincoln's legacy as the Great Emancipator reshaped the nation while his tragic death left Mary reclusive and forgotten.
Gore Vidal's Lincoln This a very personal view of President Lincoln and his relationship with his wife Mary.	Abraham Lincoln Journey though the life of America's heroic President. The story begins at Lincoln's birth. The history of what led this man to the White House, his freeing of the slaves, and the Civil War; This story delves into his personal life, including Lincoln's affair with Ann Ruthledge and courtship of Mary Todd. Lincoln struggles through his debates with Douglas and in the end is assassinated	Lincoln The History Channel Lincoln was able to employ his powerful wit and innate charm to transform his inner demons. A devastating and moving chronicle of a president's last moments, Lincoln captures the dark soul that fueled one of history's brightest lights	Unsolved History ~ Plots to Kill Lincoln Discovery Channel Before John Wilkes Booth fired that fatal shot in the balcony of Ford's Theater, President Lincoln was the target of at least five other assassination conspiracies.

American Civil War Book Titles

The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court's decision against Dred Scott	We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts How witnesses felt after; how rumor of other tragedies spread in the hours after, why some Southerners hated Lincoln and cheered his death; and, ultimately, why those who loved him were so profoundly affected	Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution For twelve days after the president was shot, the nation waited breathlessly as manhunters tracked down John Wilkes Booth	Right or Wrong, God Judge Me: THE WRITINGS OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH Collection of the writings of John Wilkes Booth constitutes a major new primary source that contributes to scholarship on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and nineteenth-century theater history. The nearly seventy documents--more than half published here for the first time--include love letters written during the summer of 1864
Reconstruction after the Civil War Chicago History of US Civilization Praised for cutting through the controversial scholarship and popular myths of the time to provide an accurate account of the role of former slaves during this period in American history	Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy Insights into the relatively neglected debates over fencing laws and hunting and fishing rights in the postemancipation South, and into the solidarity of the low-country black community	Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession Democratic leader Stephen Douglas to Republican party leader William Seward. More than just a politcal history, letters and quotes from common townspeople provide a complete view of the perceptions of the time	Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment The history of slavery in North America, the Dred Scott decision, the evolution of Lincoln's view of presidential powers, the influence of religion on Lincoln, and the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America The evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through the Revolution	The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America Go behind the scenes of the crucial Missouri Compromise, the most important sectional crisis before the Civil War, the high-level deal-making, diplomacy, and deception that defused the crisis.	I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad The Blackburn case was the first serious legal dispute between Canada and the United States regarding the Underground Railroad. The impassioned defense of the Blackburns by Canada's lieutenant governor set precedents for all future fugitive-slave cases	The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows Reconstructs what really happened in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863.
House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided by War Mary Todd Lincoln one of fourteen siblings who were split between the Confederacy and the Union. Three of her brothers fought, and two died, for the South. Several Todds bedeviled Lincolns administration with their scandalous behavior	Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House This is a memior written by a woman who started life as a slave, then managed to buy her freedom, and later set up a successful living as a seamstress, eventually going to work for Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House	Loving Mr. Lincoln: The Personal Diaries of Mary Todd Lincoln Chronicles life, love, and daily struggles with Abraham in their 26 years together. In frank, haunting journal entries, Mary describes the pain she felt when Abraham left her at the altar, when her sons died, and when Abraham's political career seemed to be at an end	First Ladies of the Civil War Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis
Abe Lincoln's Hat Step into Reading Abraham Lincoln, started out in life as an absent-minded lawyer. How did he nudge his memory? He stuck letters, court notes, contracts, and even his checkbook in his trademark top hat.	Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loved Books Children of all ages will enjoy reading this book and realizing that a love of books, as Abraham Lincoln did, can change a persons life and move him or her to become a great person	The President Is Shot!: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Grade 6-10 --Description of the violent end to Lincoln's life. Holzer provides the Civil War context of the event and then details April 14 and 15, 1865. Why Murder Lincoln?, to demonstrate that this president was not always the universally beloved icon that students see him as today.	Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860 An analysis of all aspects and particularly of the commercialism of black slaveowning debunks the myth that black slaveholding was a benevolent institution based on kinship, and explains the transition of black masters from slavery to paid labor.