What is the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation?

Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was issued on
January 1, 1863. Originally, Lincoln was slow to make slavery an issue in the Civil War,
knowing that if he did so, states that supported the Union, but also supported slavery,
would join with the Confederacy (the South). In this case, Lincoln knew they would lose
the war, which would not serve the abolition of slavery. Slavery was something that
Lincoln could find no way to reconcile in his own mind: he detested the practice.
Slavery was:

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...a moral and constitutional paradox that lay at
the heart of the American national
experience.

In 1860, there
were more than four million slaves in the United States, representing approximately one
seventh of the total population. Change was in the
wings;

Slavery
was 'the sleeping serpent' waiting to be
awakened.

Ultimately, the
slaves of the South made the decision for the Union, and so, too, for President Lincoln.
The slaves realized that as the Union army advanced southward, the opportunity presented
itself for their escape. Approximately 600,000, or fifteen percent of the total number
of slaves, escaped from their plantations and traveled North. Many sought out the Union
camps. Union leaders did not know what to do: return the escaped slaves to their owners
or allow them to stay? Most decided to allow the slaves to remain, eventually
identifying them as "contraband" (or property) seized during a military encounter. Under
this premise, "seizing" slaves supported the "military effort," not the emancipation of
slaves.

There was criticism of the proclamation because it
only freed slaves in Confederate states that were captured by the Union's military. It
did not free slaves that were in areas already captured, or with
states that were supportive of the Union in the war. A president's power was limited by
the Constitution, and the only real power Lincoln had was as "commander-in-chief" from a
military
standpoint.

Eventually, the
Emancipation Proclamation liberated two-thirds of the slaves in this country as part of
the war effort. States that were supportive of the Union's cause freed their slaves, and
finally, the 13th Amendment, passed in 1865, outlawed the keeping of slaves in the
United States.