Select the correct answer.
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any Sta
or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom.
excerpt from Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln, 1862

A. It freed all indentured servants in the Confederate States from their debts.
B. It freed all African Americans in the Confederate States from slavery.
C. It allowed only the Confederate States to maintain the system of slavery.
D. It established a new "separate but equal" system in the Confederate States.