Title: The Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation [Video]
Headings: The Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation
The Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation
Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation

Content: Thanks in large part to the proclamation, roughly 180,000 African-American soldiers, including freed slaves, would fight for the North during the remainder of the war and contribute to the final victory, achieved in April 1865. Lincoln’s order gave a fresh dose of energy to the moral aspect of the Union fight. For the North, the war now had a very powerful motivating end goal: the destruction of slavery. As they swept into Southern states, Union troops were liberators. Internationally, the legs were cut out from under the Confederacy’s sources of foreign funding: Britain and France, with anti-slavery governments, could no longer justify continued support for a pro-slavery government fighting against an anti-slavery opponent. This momentum also helped the Republican Party unite around a simple, effective mission: ending slavery in the United States. Lincoln used this focus to introduce the 13th Amendment in 1864, which by February of 1865 had passed both houses of Congress in proposal form and was officially out to the states for approval.