The final version of the Emancipation Proclamation came on January first,declaring: " ...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 ..."

VOA: special.2010.05.10

This is what it said: I,Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States and commander in chief of the Army and Navy, do hereby declare that on the first day of January, eighteen sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state then in rebellion against the United States, shall then become and be forever free.

VOA: special.2009.10.08

He said the amendment should recognize the right to own slaves as property in states where slavery was permitted.

VOA: special.2009.07.16

In other words,only slaves in the southern states that did not recognize Lincoln as president.

VOA: special.2009.02.09

He said the citizen from Georgia had as much right to settle in this territory with his slaves as a citizen of Maine with his horse.

VOA: special.2009.05.14

Confederate lawmakers finally began to discuss the idea of using slaves as soldiers.

VOA: special.2009.12.03

They use boys as soldiers and girls as sex slaves.

VOA: special.2009.06.01

First Lady Michelle Obama is the great-great-granddaughter of African slaves "I think as Americans and African-Americans, obviously,there is a special sense that on the one hand this place was a place of profound sadness.

VOA: standard.2009.07.11