The Emancipation Proclamation

In the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln sat down at his desk with a big idea.

He picked up his pen and signed a paper called the Emancipation Proclamation.

It said that all enslaved people in the Southern states were now free.

The war wasn't over yet, but this piece of paper changed what the whole war was about — freedom.

Two years later, an amendment to the Constitution made sure slavery ended everywhere in America forever.