an announcement made in the US by President Abraham Lincoln
which ordered the end of slavery (=the practice of owning people
as property)in the Confederate States (=the southern states of
the US)from January 1st 1863. The Proclamation was made during
the Civil War. Soon after the war, slavery was completely ended
by the "13th Amendment" to the US Constitution. Definition from
the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Advanced
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