The Emancipation Proclamation declared that slaves in Confederate states would be free. Who signed it?

• A. Abraham Lincoln
• B. Jefferson Davis
• C. Ulysses S. Grant
• D. Andrew Johnson

Answer: (A)

Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He issued it as president on January 1, 1863, using his war powers to declare that enslaved people in Confederate-held areas were free as the Civil War continued. This move reframed the war as a fight against slavery and opened the door for Black soldiers to serve in the Union Army. The proclamation did not immediately free slaves in border states or in areas still under Union control, and abolition nationwide came later with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Jefferson Davis led the Confederacy, Ulysses S. Grant was a Union general, and Andrew Johnson became president after Lincoln’s assassination; none of them signed the proclamation.