President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation in September 1862 that all slaves would be declared free in those states that were still in rebellion against the Union at the beginning of 1863. Receiving no official response from the Confederacy, Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. All slaves in the rebellious Confederate states were to be forever free. However, slavery could continue to exist in border states that were not at war against the Union. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represented the beginning of the end of chattel slavery in the United States.