On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, stating that as of January 1st, 1863, all slaves in the slave-holding states would be freed forever. He issued this shortly after the Union’s success at Antietam and saw this would be a strategic military tactic as well as the ethical thing to do. Through the Proclamation, slaves’ freedom would be assured and protected by the United States government and armed forces. When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, it immediately gave freedom to about 100,00 slaves and later about seventy eight percent of the nation’s slaves were freed. It caused the government to leave the laws of slavery to the states and slavery was then viewed as a “domestic practice of individual states”. The Proclamation also caused the reason of war to shift from a fight to restore the union to a battle for a restored union with freed slaves. After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, there would no longer be a legal difference between the white man and a slave. From a political point of view, the Emancipation Proclamation marked the end of governmental support of slavery. Also, once the Union was committed to abolishing slavery, the likelihood of Great Britain acknowledging the Confederacy as a nation was much less. As expected, the Confederates were not supportive of the Emancipation Proclamation. Since most Confederates did not consider themselves as part of the United States anymore, they did not feel they had to listen to President Abraham Lincoln. The southerners were outraged and were afraid the slaves would want revenge on their owners for the harsh treatment they had lived through. Some southerners viewed the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation as an invitation to a race war, meaning the cause of war was based on racial conflicts. The President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis, was not happy with the Proclamation. He did not acknowledge the act and rebelled against it by saying that any Union soldier captured on Confederate soil, may be punished based on individual state laws. This statement basically gave the Confederate States the opportunity to execute Union soldiers without punishment. Jefferson Davis believed the slaves were happy where they were and did not think President Lincoln should interfere with that. He also believed that slavery was necessary for the United States to survive. Later that year, on November 9, 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Here he said that “the dead shall not die in vain- that this nation under God, should have a new birth of freedom.” By saying this, he was recognizing and praising the soldiers who fought and died for slaves’ freedom. Lincoln also said that all men are created equal and their government was of the people, by the people, and for the people. This address relates to the Emancipation Proclamation because he was restating the fact that African Americans are no different than whites and everyone deserves freedom. He was also saying that the Union will not stop fighting until all slaves are free and this cemetery will be a place of remembrance for those men who participated in the fight. The issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation marks the beginning of the civil rights era. It was the first enforced act to gain minorities, in this case slaves, rights. The freeing of slaves was the first step in African Americans gaining civil rights, because if they were never freed, they would have never fought for the right to vote or desegregation. The Emancipation Proclamation showed that change can happen and influenced equality for all. Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, Congress enforced Confiscation Acts, which attempted to free any slaves in Confederate states. These acts did not work too well because they were only enforced in Confederate states where the Union forces were, which lead President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Since this did not totally free all slaves and it would not be enforced postwar, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed to ban slavery. This amendment easily reached the two-thirds majority in the Senate by April 8, 1864. However, the Democrats in the House of Representatives were much more reluctant. Only twenty-three percent of Democrats voted for the amendment to be passed. It was not until January 31, 1865, that enough Democrats voted to have the amendment passed. On December 6, 1865, Georgia ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, causing it to go into effect, and abolishing slavery in the United States.