10 Facts About The Emancipation Proclamation Of 1860

The civil war was not started in an attempt to abolish slavery, but to reunify the United States. Many of the slaves didn’t see it this way. They saw it as a way to freedom. General Benjamin F. Butler would take in the slaves as “contraband of war” since they were seen as property to the south. In 1861, the First Confiscation Act authorized the members of the union to confiscate any property the confederates were using to assist them in the war. With the Second Confiscation Act, in 1862, it expanded the reach of the union to confiscate any slaves with masters that worked for the confederates (Martinez). The war continued on and then on September 22, 1862 President Abraham Lincoln issued the initial Emancipation Proclamation ("10 Facts about the Emancipation Proclamation"). The proclamation stated

On January 1, 1963 Lincoln put the Emancipation Proclamation into effect. After this the objectives of the war shifted to freeing the slaves ("10 Facts about the Emancipation Proclamation"). The war continued until June 22, 1865 when they surrendered. There were small locations where slavery still continued, but federal troops would go to those locations and enforce the Emancipation Proclamation (Wikipedia."Slavery in the United States"). In 1865 the 13th amendment was passed and slavery was illegal. Then in 1868 the 14th amendment was passed and gave African Americans citizenship. The final amendment to pass for a long time was the 15th amendment in 1870; it gave male African Americans the right to vote (Wikipedia. “African-American Civil Rights Movement”). The African American slaves were finally freed after over 100 years of treated horribly and being enslaved. They would not be forced to do physical labour anymore, but they didn’t get their civil rights that most Americans take for granted. They got these rights through the civil rights movement.