The Emancipation Proclamation promptly declared that all slaves in slave states were freed.
However, there were certain caveats to this. First, the Emancipation Proclamation did not affect slave states that stayed in the Union, at least not until the end of the war. Secondly, the Emancipation Proclamation did not have effect on slave states that joined the Confederate States of America, and therefore was voided. The Emancipation Proclamation, in the end, was a token set up by President Lincoln as a promise that slavery would end one day. He was able to follow through with such a promise after the Union won the American Civil War.
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