When was slavery abolished in the United States?

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate-held territory free, but it did not cover border states loyal to the Union. On 19 June 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce freedom for about 250,000 enslaved people, a day now celebrated as Juneteenth. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, passed by Congress in January 1865, was ratified on 6 December 1865. It ended slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Around 4 million people were freed by the end of the Civil War.