Read the passage from the Emancipation Proclamation. That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

–Emancipation Proclamation,
January 1, 1863

What was the purpose of this proclamation?

to stop the slave trade across the US
to free enslaved people in the South
to offer safe passage to fugitive slaves
to allow former slaves to fight in the war