This book describes the roots of slavery in the United States, and examines the reasons why certain people and states were for it, while others were opposed to it. It also explains why President Lincoln issued the proclamation when he did, whom the proclamation freed, and whom it did not, and some of the effects it had on future events. Readers learn about the differences between northern and southern economies, how slavery became a states rights issue, how Congress struggled to maintain a balance between free and slave states, and how Lincoln's election forced 11 southern states to leave the Union and hastened the beginning of the Civil War.

Includes the full text of the Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and portions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.