That is not accurate either. As Union troops moved through the south (those areas "in rebellion" specified by Lincoln in the EP) during the war, millions of slaves were indeed freed under the terms of the emancipation proclamation. Slavery as a legal institution did not end until the final ratification of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865.
“That is not accurate either. As Union troops moved through the south (those areas “in rebellion” specified by Lincoln in the EP) during the war, millions of slaves were indeed freed under the terms of the emancipation proclamation. Slavery as a legal institution did not end until the final ratification of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865.”
You are absolutely correct, Ditto. What many people fail to understand about Lincoln was that, in his view, his primary responsibility as President was to protect not only the Constitution of the United States, not only the territorial integrity of the United States, but also to protect it from political threats that would lead to its destruction. For him it was not the issue of slavery that threatened the existence of the United States - no, for him it was “secession”, the idea that a state could simply vote itself out of the Union, that was the primary enemy. In Lincoln’s view, if secession were permitted, as practiced by the southern states, then the United States would ultimately cease to exist and would become, in effect, another Europe with every state being an individual country.
That this was what would happen was even demonstrated by some of the states in the Confederacy, who threatened to seceed from the Confederate States if Jefferson Davis enacted laws they didn’t agree with. So, first and formost, one must understand that for Lincoln, secession was the real enemy to the integrity and preservation of the United States.
While critics of Lincoln are partly correct when they say that the Proclamation was merely “freedom on paper”, they fail to understand that Lincoln still knew that, as President, he did not have the authority to abolish slavery - only congress and the amendment process could do that. He could not legally use it against states that were still a part of the Union - how could he? Those states were not at war with the United States.
However, it was within his power as commander-in-chief to impose the Proclamation as a military measure against those states that were in rebellion. The Proclamation was a valuable military measure in that it weakened the Confederacy in logistical manpower by giving southern slaves even more reason to leave the south and escape to the North, it gave new impetus in raising troops for the war and it gave Lincoln the political and moral high ground in the minds of the rest of the world that the war was now being fought to end slavery and not just to restore the Union. England and France understood this and therefore, largely because of this Proclamation, refused to recognize the Confederacy, because to do so would now be a tacit acknowledgement of supporting human slavery. This had the practical effect of forcing the Confederacy into the position of winning their War for Independence by themselves without any tangible support from European nations.
Everyone at the time, including Lincoln, abolisionist leaders, his cabinet, the people of both northern and southern states, and the rest of the world, knew that the signing of this act, limited though it was, was, in effect, the beginning of the formal and practical end to the institution of slavery in the United States. The Southern press and the Confederate leaders railed against the act for that very reason.
Therefore, it is appropriate to celebrate the signing of the Proclamation. Anyone who knows history and looks at it fairly understands that it did indeed mark the beginning of the legal end to the insitutution of slavery. I believe Lincoln did the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons. If you look at the military and political climate of the day fairly, I think you will come to the same conclusion.