On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. One curious thing about the document is its promise of compensation:
And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
The proclamation was signed by Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward:
Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
The final version of the proclamation was delivered on January 1, 1863.