Emancipation Proclamation
First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln is an 1864 oil-on-canvas painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. In the painting, Carpenter depicts Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, and his Cabinet members reading over the Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states rebelling against the Union in the American Civil War. Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet on July 22, 1862, and issued the Proclamation on September 22, 1862, which took effect on January 1, 1863.