Emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment

When the American Civil War began in 1861, Abraham Lincoln's stated aim was to preserve the Union, not to end slavery. Yet enslaved people forced the issue by escaping to Union lines, and the war's demands changed policy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, effective 1 January 1863, declared enslaved people free in areas in rebellion; it did not apply to loyal border states, but it turned the war into a fight against slavery and opened the Union army to Black soldiers, about 180,000 of whom served.

Because a wartime proclamation might be challenged after the war, abolitionists pushed for a constitutional amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in January 1865 and ratified in December 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, except as punishment for a crime. Historians continue to debate the relative roles of Lincoln, Congress, the army and the enslaved themselves in bringing emancipation about.