Emancipation Proclamation Dbq Essay

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The civil war became a different war as the gleaming sun set over the bloody fields of Antietam. After the union had partially won the battle, Abraham Lincoln changed the war as he wrote one of the most controversial, and most crucial documents in American history: the Emancipation Proclamation (Dudley 166). Mr. Lincoln’s preliminary proclamation declared that on January 1, 1863, all slaves remaining in areas of the South “in rebellion would be declared then, thenceforward, and forever free” (Dudley 167). The Emancipation Proclamation paved the way to the abolition of slavery, and is by far one of the most important accomplishments made in history. The Emancipation Proclamation allowed black soldiers to enlist in the Union army, which abolitionists