Although Maryland was still a "slave state" at the time, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to it, because it was a non-Confederate state, having officially remained in the Union; President Lincoln feared that ending slavery there at the height of the Civil War would cause Maryland to leave the Union. Hence, ending slavery there required a state-level referendum. When slavery there was abolished with the adoption of the third Maryland Constitution of 1864, Lincoln's fears were not realized; the war finished without Maryland ever defecting to the Confederacy, although many men from southern Maryland counties and the "Eastern Shore" did fight on the side of the Confederacy.