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United States Proclamation 95 by Abraham Lincoln, issued 1 January 1863, better known as the Final Emancipation Proclamation.

This month is the 150th anniversary of the issuing of this proclamation, which marked a significant turning point in American history. It was issued during the American Civil War by the President of the United States of America, rendering every slave in the opposing Confederate States of America permanently free, to be enforced by Union armed forces as territory was taken. It followed the earlier Proclamation 93, or Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and together they are known as the Emancipation Proclamation. It did not apply to the United States, in which slaves were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Now, Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

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Featured January 2013