Emancipation Proclamation
Henry Louis Stephens, untitled watercolor (c.
1863) of a man reading a newspaper with
headline "Presidential Proclamation /
Slavery".
The Emancipation Proclamation consists
of two executive orders issued by United
States President Abraham Lincoln during the
American Civil War. The first one, issued
September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of
all slaves in any state of the Confederate
States of America that did not return to
Union control by January 1, 1863. The second
order, issued January 1, 1863, named ten
specific states where it would apply. Lincoln
issued the Executive Order by his authority
as "Commander in Chief of the Army and
Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the Un-
ited States Constitution.
The Emancipation Proclamation was criti-
cized at the time as freeing only the slaves
over which the Union had no power. Al-
though most slaves were not freed immedi-
ately, the Proclamation brought freedom to
thousands of slaves the day it went into ef-
fect[1] in parts of nine of the ten states to
which it applied (Texas being the excep-
tion).[2] Additionally,
the
Proclamation
provided a legal framework for the emancipa-
tion of nearly all four million slaves as the
Union armies advanced, and committed the
Union to ending slavery, which was a contro-
versial decision even in the North. The pro-
clamation did not name the border states of
Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, or Delaware,
which had never declared a secession, and so
it did not free any slaves there. The state of
Tennessee had already mostly returned to
Union control, so it also was not named and
was exempted. Virginia was named, but ex-
emptions were specified for the 48 counties
that were in the process of forming West Vir-
ginia, as well as seven other named counties
and two cities. Also specifically exempted
were New Orleans and thirteen named par-
ishes of Louisiana, all of which were also
already mostly under Federal control at the
time of the first Proclamation.
However, in other Union-occupied areas of
CSA states beside