Emancipation Proclamation

The courageous step that enshrined the Union in freedom.

Slavery had torn the United States apart. For decades the nation was bitterly divided on the issue. The North was anti-slavery. The pro-slavery South was economically dependent on slaves to harvest the cotton crop. Many central states were undecided on the issue. The uneasy compromise between the two sides collapsed soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860. As America descended into civil war, it threatened to destroy the vision of freedom the founders had embarked on only 80 years earlier.

Read more at “160 Years Since the Emancipation Proclamation”