Actually, and check your history on this, the Emancipation Proclamation did formally set hundreds of thousands free.
Since it applied only to those states in rebellion, yes, it didn’t count for places like Maryland, or Delaware...or the District of Columbia, states and jurisdictions which were slave areas, but were not in rebellion.
However, the Union in 1863 controlled whole sections of Virginia, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc. and the proclamation did formally...apply to those states. And in jurisdiction (as claimed by the Union) applied, though unenforceable, to all the Southern states.
For most black Americans too—the symbolic power of the Emancipation was enormous too.
Just so you know, I am the great-grandson of a Confederate officer and slave owner, and though I respect his service—and believed he did right in his circumstance... I am happy for everyone’s sake, that in God’s good Providence, the Union won the war. There would be no United States without that, and WWI (just 50 years after) and further, would have been very different.
Exactly. You just contradicted yourself. The so-called EP applied only to states in rebellion. The whole sections you mentioned would have not been in rebellion since, as you noted, were controlled by the yankees. The Union had no control over the Confederate States because it was another country. The EP freed no one.
Also why didn’t Lincoln free ALL slaves, even those held by the yankees, if he was so anti-slavery. Why did he only “free” people over who he had no jurisdiction? It is well documented that Lincoln was a racist and believe the African slaves to be inferior. That’s not my belief, but Lincoln’s comments on that subject abound. If he really wanted to “free the slaves” he should have freed the one up north as well. He never did.