President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation 150 years ago on September 22nd, 1862. It ordered the emancipation of all slaves in any Confederate state that did not return to the Union by January 1st, 1863. No Confederate states returned, and Lincoln signed and issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
In this discussion from the 2012 Civil War Institute Conference at Gettysburg College, history professors and bloggers talk about the debates and controversies of emancipation – its timing, its initial results, and its post-war effects into the 20th century.