Fremont issued an emancipation proclamation in St. Louis, freeing slaves in Missouri, a bold move that predated President Abraham Lincoln’s more famous Emancipation Proclamation by two years.

Lincoln then read aloud a 325-word first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, intended to free slaves in Confederate areas not under United States authority. Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the ...

Abraham Lincoln changed the course of history not through brute assertion of power but by wrestling with its limits.

Director of the African American History and Culture Museum Lonnie Bunch looks at the forces that brought about the January 1, 1863 order. Who Was the Real Cleopatra? (03:31) Fact or Fiction? The ...

Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Lincoln’s presidency is too often reduced to its most dramatic acts: the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of federal authority, the conduct of ...