This Month's Featured Story

This month marks the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery in the rebelling states. A preliminary proclamation had been issued in September 1862, following the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. The act signaled an important shift in the Union's Civil War aims, expanding the goal of the war from preservation of the Union to include the eradication of slavery. Because the Proclamation applied only in ten states that were still in rebellion in 1863, Lincoln also urged the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. 

Learn More

• Emancipation Proclamation (Civil War Trust)
• Emancipation Proclamation (National Archives)
• Emancipation Proclamation (Library of Congress)
• Emancipation Timeline (National Endowment for the Humanities)
• How the Emancipation Proclamation Came to Be Signed (Smithsonian)
• Images of Emancipation (New York Times)
• The Coming of the Emancipation Proclamation (New York Times)
• The Full Emancipation Proclamation (PBS)
• Visualizing Emancipation (University of Richmond)

Related Resources

The movie Lincoln, based in part on historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, has reignited the debate surrounding Abraham Lincoln and his often conflicting views on slavery and civil rights.  Learn More

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How should Abraham Lincoln be remembered?

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