The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln after the victory of the Union at Antietam. The President had more than one reason to issue the Emancipation. In fact, when the Civil War began, in 1861, his main concern was to preserve the Union, and even though he had never been a supporter of slavery, its abolition wasn’t one of his priorities. Moreover, Lincoln couldn’t use the abolition of slavery as the aim of the war because both North and South would have not gone along with such a reason for war. However, as time passed, he realized that, to win the war, he had to attack the South to its core, which was the slavery system. In fact, slaves were fleeing the South to reach the Union’s lines and even join its military.