First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by President
Lincoln. (Painted by Francis Carpenter)

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date of January 1, 1863 for the
freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and
recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, shortly after Lincoln’s inauguration
as America’s 16th president, he maintained that the war was about
restoring the Union and not about slavery. He avoided issuing an anti-
slavery proclamation immediately, despite the urgings of abolitionists
and radical Republicans, as well as his personal belief that slavery was
morally repugnant. Instead, Lincoln chose to move cautiously until he
could gain wide support from the public for such a measure.

President Lincoln signing the Emancipation
Proclamation.

The five page original document, held in the National Archives
Building. Until 1936 it had been bound with other proclamations
in a large volume held by the Department of State.

On this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation
Proclamation. Attempting to stitch together a nation mired in
a bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln made a last-ditch, but
carefully calculated, decision regarding the institution of
slavery in America. The Proclamation ordered the freedom
of all slaves in ten states.

An African American man reading a newspaper with headline "Presidential Proclamation/Slavery".

The National Day of Prayer was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of
Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. In 1988,
the law was unanimously amended by both the House and the Senate
and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on Thursday, May 5,
1988, designating the first Thursday of May as a day of national prayer
and every president since 1952 has signed a National Day of Prayer
proclamation.