"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, 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; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom....."
There were naysayers.
The former Governor of New York said, during his successful gubernatorial campaign for a second - non-consecutive - term, regarding the preliminary proclamation of September 1862, that emancipation would result in the freed slaves wreaking vengeance on the white population:
"a proposal for the butchery of women and children, scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder."
