The Emancipation Proclamation is described as freeing slaves in which states?

• A. Confederate States
• B. Union States
• C. Border States
• D. All States

Answer: (A)

The main idea being tested is where the Emancipation Proclamation applied and why that scope matters. The proclamation was issued during the Civil War as a wartime measure and declared that enslaved people in states that were in rebellion against the United States would be free. That means it applied to the Confederate States—those areas actively fighting the Union and under Confederate control at that time.

It did not free enslaved people in the Union states or in border states that remained loyal to the United States. Those enslaved communities stayed enslaved until the Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, outlawed slavery nationwide.

So, the Emancipation Proclamation is best understood as freeing enslaved people in the Confederate States, not in the Union or border states, and not across the entire country.