Myth #8   Top 10 Myths About the Civil War Changing the Laws
Timeline    Myth #8:  The Emancipation Proclamation freed all
black people.   Punishing the South  Abraham Lincoln, the 16th
president of the United States, issued the Emancipation
Proclamation, which led to the end of slavery, on January 1,
1863. He issued it because on September 22, 1862, he had warned
that if the states of the Confederacy, or South, didn't return
to the Union, or North, by January 1, 1863, he would declare
their slaves "forever free." The South refused to return to the
Union, so Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Emancipation means to free from bondage, the condition of a
slave. Proclamation means to announce officially and publicly,
or declare. This means that the Emancipation Proclamation means
to free from slavery and declare it publicly.  This all happened
because the North went to war with the South mainly to reunite
the nation, not to end slavery. This war is also known as the
Civil War. The North went to war wi