Emancipation Proclamation

[ih-man-suh-pey-shuhn prok-luh-mey-shuhn]

noun

U.S. History.

1. the proclamation issued by President Lincoln on September 22, 1862, that freed the people held as slaves in those territories still in rebellion against the Union from January 1, 1863, forward.

Emancipation Proclamation

1. A proclamation made by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 that all slaves under the Confederacy were from then on “forever free.”

In itself, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves, because it applied only to rebellious areas that the federal government did not then control. It did not affect the four slave states that stayed in the Union: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Yet when people say that Lincoln “freed the slaves,” they are referring to the Emancipation Proclamation.

Example Sentences

On New Year’s Day of 1863, his final Emancipation Proclamation not only promised freedom to millions of slaves in the Deep South but also urged Black Americans to join the Union Army.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

They were freed by Union soldiers in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“The projections mirror and amplify that as part of the visual vocabulary, whether that’s Douglass’ newspaper articles or autobiographies, or the text of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

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The proclamation recognized slavery as an “inhumane practice” and the Emancipation Proclamation as having “ended its evil stain on American democracy.”

Read more on Slate

As many Americans commemorate Juneteenth this week – a day marking when the promises of the Emancipation Proclamation were finally delivered and the last enslaved people were freed, a day that Black Americans have celebrated for years that Biden recently made a federal holiday – we must shine a light on the shameful exception that allows forced labor to continue in new forms.

Read more on Salon

When To Use

What was the Emancipation Proclamation?

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by US President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War that ordered the freeing of enslaved peoples in Confederate states not yet captured by Union forces.How is Emancipation Proclamation pronounced?[ ih-man-suh-pey-shuhn prok-luh-mey-shuhn ]