What Was The Emancipation Proclamation?

The initial intention of President Abraham Lincoln to wage war against the Confederate States of America was his pursuit to save the Union.  However when the Union army started gaining momentum in the American Civil War and the South started weakening, President Lincoln felt this to be the most accurate time to put a permanent end to slavery.  As a matter of fact, Abraham Lincoln had never thought of slavery to be right in the moral regard.  This very opportunity to abolish slavery was instantly availed by President Lincoln, as he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation after the victory of the Union army in the Battle of Antietam.  According to the Emancipation Proclamation, all the enslaved African Americans in the states of the Confederacy would be freed at the start of the year 1863, a news that proved to be an utter source of delight for all the enslaved African Americans.