The Emancipation Proclamation and Its Impact The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, was a wartime executive order that declared all enslaved people in Confederate-held territory to be free (Foner, 2010). Although it did not immediately free all enslaved people, it transformed the character of the war, shifting its aim from merely preserving the … Continue reading “The Emancipation Proclamation: Abraham Lincoln’s Fight to Free a Divided Nation”