FACT #15
Six months after the last Confederate general surrendered his troops to the Union Army, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed by Congress in December 1865, finally outlawed slavery throughout the entire United States, including those areas earlier excluded by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Nine months after signing the DC Emancipation Act, and one hundred days after issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, on January 1, 1863.

The Emancipation Proclamation was primarily of symbolic importance. No enslaved people were immediately freed by the proclamation because it excluded slave-holding border states—Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky—out of fear of sending them into rebellion. Enslaved people living in states controlled by the Confederacy could only be freed if and when the Union Army arrived and liberated them in person. Yet the Emancipation Proclamation clarified that slavery would end in states that did not return to the Union.

Six months after the last Confederate general surrendered his troops to the Union Army, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed by Congress in December 1865, finally outlawed slavery throughout the entire United States, including those areas earlier excluded by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Source: https://emancipation.dc.gov/page/history-emancipation-day

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