Freedom Day, National, falls on February 1. It commemorates the day a resolution was signed proposing an amendment to the Constitution to outlaw slavery. Congress adopted the resolution, and President Abraham Lincoln signed it on Feb. 1, 1865. Amendment 13 was ratified by the states and was proclaimed on Dec. 18, 1865 (see Constitution of the United States ). It freed all enslaved people in the North. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, had freed only the enslaved people in territories that were in rebellion against the United States (see Emancipation Proclamation ).
In 1948, Congress authorized the President to proclaim the first day of February in each year as National Freedom Day. President Harry S. Truman made Feb. 1, 1949, the first such day.
