Before the Civil War, slavery was wide-spread in the South. Once the Civil War broke out, several slave-holding states broke away from the Union and joined the Confederacy. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebel states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” Lesson 9 of a 72-part series:Emancipation Proclamation of the Civil War