The abolitionists achieved their goal during the Civil War. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in all states in rebellion against the Union. By the war's end, both houses of Congress had approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited slavery in the United States and its territories. But the Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed it presented an array of political, social, and economic issues to be addressed by the African American leadership.

During the war, Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists urged President Lincoln to recruit black soldiers for the Union army. In desperate need of men to fight the war, Lincoln finally allowed blacks to enlist. The Emancipation Proclamation included a statement opening the Union army and navy to black recruits. Before the war's end, almost two...