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Why did President Lincoln wait to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?

President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) issued the Emancipation Proclamation (the document that declared slaves to be free) after the Civil War (1861–65) had been raging for a year. He delayed because, in spite of growing pressure from abolitionists (those who wanted to outlaw slavery), slavery had not been the main issue in the war between the Confederacy (states in the South) and the Union (states in the North; the United States). Instead, the primary reason for the war was the Southern states concern over their right to make their own laws and control their economies. Southern leaders consequently feared that their agricultural economy, which was based on slave labor, was being threatened by the industrialized North, which was based on paid labor. In addition, the war had not been going well for the Union, and Lincoln knew he...

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