The National Archives is marking the 156th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with a display of the original document from April 14-16, 2019. When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, he said, “I never in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper. . . . If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” The document proclaimed that slaves held in areas still in reb