Закон о конфискации 1862 года и освобождение рабов во время Гражданской войны в США.

Act of US Congress

The Confiscation Act of 1862, or Second Confiscation Act, was a law passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War. Section 9 of the act formed the legal basis for President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

The Confiscation Act was enacted on July 17, 1862. The defining characteristic of the act was that it called for court proceedings for seizure of land and property from disloyal citizens (supporters of the Confederacy) in the South as well as the emancipation of their slaves that came under Union control. Neither the Act nor the federal Constitution define "insurrection" or "rebellion," but Supreme Court precedent understands the former term to mean any uprising against the lawful authority of the government, and the latter to mean such an uprising that has organized itself within a particular territory. The most significant change over the first confiscation act was the final status of escaped slaves. While the first act did not make any determination on the final status of slaves after the war was over, the Second Act explicitly said that all slaves covered under it would be permanently freed. The Second Confiscation Act also prohibited anyone in the military from returning escaped slaves, even slaves that had escaped from Union states that still had legal slavery. One man, March Haynes, began smuggling people to the freedom of the Union lines with the help of Union General Quincy Adams Gilmore. In return for his help, Haynes provided Gilmore with "exact and valuable information" on the location of Confederate defenses and the strength of their forces.