President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which came into effect on January 1, 1863, marked a change in the federal government's position on slavery. (Up to that time, the federal government had never even taken a limited pro-emancipation stance, and it could only do so in 1862 because of the 1861 departure of almost all of the Southern members of Congress). Though the proclamation was welcomed by abolitionists, its application had limitations. It did not apply, for example, to the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slave-holding border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and the new state of West Virginia, and it also did not apply in those portions of some states which were loyal to the Union, such as Virginia. In those states, slavery remained legal until abolished by state action, or by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.