Meanwhile President Lincoln was debating the Emancipation Proclamation.
Pressure from radical anti-slavery sources was constantly being brought
to bear upon him, and Horace Greeley in his famous editorial, "The
Prayer of Twenty Millions," was only one of those who criticized what
seemed to be his lack of strength in handling the situation. After
McClellan's unsuccessful campaign against Richmond, however, he felt
that the freedom of the slaves was a military and moral necessity for
its effects upon both the North and the South; and Lee's defeat at
Antietam, September 17, 1862, furnished the opportunity for which he
had been waiting. Accordingly on September 22nd he issued a preliminary
declaration giving notice that on January 1, 1865, he would free all
slaves in the states still in rebellion, and asserting as before that
the object of the war was the preservation of the Union.

The Proclamation as finally issued January 1st is one of the most
important public documents in the history of the United States, ranking
only below the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself.
It full text is as follows:

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was
issued by the President of the United States containing among other
things the following, to-wit:

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves
within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then,
thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the
United States, including the military and naval authority thereof,
will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will
do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any
efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the states and parts of states, if any, in
which the people thereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof,
shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of
the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein
a majority of the qualified voters