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