OH! So you really are a democrat.
I knew it.
Also, as a side note in case you didn't know: The democrats of that time have almost nothing in common with today's liberals. The parties have changed a lot since that time. On many issues the democrat party was the more conservative party back then.
ROFLOLOLOL!
Aside from a few abolitionists, Northerners did not care about the slaves. And guess what? The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free a single slave. Aside from its very dubious constitutionality (you can't overturn established law with just a presidential proclamation. If you could, Obama would be doing it all the time), Lincoln was declaring slaves to be free in another country where he had no authority. And regarding those slaves in union states or union held areas it was specifically written that they were to be left as before. Grant didn't have to free his slaves until the 13th amendment was passed. Lincoln cared about the slaves. Sure.
The proclamation was a war measure, plain and simple. Lincoln said that "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that." The proclamation's goal was to cloak the Northern invasion in morality and discourage England and France from joining in and helping the Confederacy. It made lots of Northerners mad though, and there were lynchings of blacks up North because of it.
Btw, Britain offered freedom to any slaves that would join them against the colonists in the War for American Independence (and there were slaves in EVERY state at that time). I guess that makes Britain the good guys. We should celebrate them too, right? After all, they just cared about the slaves so much....