The Second Conscription Act, passed on October 11, 1862, exempts from the Confederate draft one white male for every 20 slaves held on a plantation. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that enough white males remain behind to prevent violent slave revolts, particularly after President Lincoln announces his Emancipation Proclamation, which may encourage slaves to rebel. The law is resisted by poorer white Southerners (the vast majority) who own fewer than 20 slaves or none at all. As in the North, which exempts from its own draft any white male who pays $300 or finds a substitute to take his place, many Southerners resent a system of conscription that allows wealthier men the option of avoiding service. The popularly-named "Twenty Negro Law" remained in place, with periodic modifications, until the Confederacy surrendered and ceased to exist in 1865.