On August 6, 1861, the First Confiscation Act was signed into law in the United States. This law was an important step in the fight against slavery, as it declared that slaves used by the Confederacy in support of the rebellion were to be considered contraband of war and thus could be seized by Union forces. The act was a significant move toward the abolition of slavery, as it weakened the Confederate war effort and freed enslaved people working for Confederate forces.
This law marked one of the early instances where the federal government directly intervened to undermine slavery, paving the way for further legislative actions like the Emancipation Proclamation and eventually the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.
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