“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…”
From the Emancipation Proclamation, January 1st, 1863
Abraham Lincoln
(Photo Credit: Library of Congress)
The Civil War Book 