The federal prohibition on importing enslaved people took effect. Slavery remained legal, and the internal trade forcibly moved hundreds of thousands of people from the Upper South to expanding cotton...
Lincoln announced that enslaved people in areas still rebelling on January 1, 1863 would be declared free. The warning gave Confederate states a period to return to the Union and preserved slavery...
The Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people in designated areas in rebellion to be free and authorized Black men to enlist in the Union Army. It did not immediately free everyone, and its...
