The Anaconda Plan was seen as a humanitarian way to force a Confederate surrender by denying supplies and resources. The Union set up blockades along the Atlantic Coast to deprive the Confederacy of supplies. They also hoped to control the Mississippi River to move their troops and supplies into the South. But as the war raged into into its 2nd, horrific year, President Lincoln issued he Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, granting freedom to enslaved peoples in ten states. But it was ignored by southerners. It was issued during the American Civil War and helped allow the Union to win the war. While it did not make slavery illegal and there was criticism surrounding the document, its existence brought on the abolition of slavery in 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in the history of the United States.