Emancipation Proclamation is one of the United States of America's most important documents, which aimed to bring the Civil War closer to an end. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. In September 1862, Lincoln announced that he intended to declare the order within 100 days and did so on January 1, 1863.[footnoteRef:1] [1: "Lincoln Issues Emancipation Proclamation," Date accessed 11 September 2012, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-issues-emancipation-proclamation]

President Lincoln's intended audience was not only those slaveholders in the Union, whom he assured would not be affected by the executive order, but also slaves and slaveholders in the Confederacy. One of the reasons that the Emancipation Proclamation was written was to free slaves in states that were in rebellion with the Union. Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation sought to make abolition a goal of the war, create more social unrest in the South, and...
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