[sheltonmac]

Sorry, but you're wrong for a number of reasons:

1. To say that Lincoln had the power to end slavery with the stroke of a pen is to assign dictatorial powers to the presidency, allowing him to override Congress as well as the Constitution.
2. The Confederate states that had seceded were no longer bound by the laws of the United States. They were a sovereign nation, thus beyond Lincoln's tyrannical reach.
3. If you don't accept that the seceding states were in fact sovereign, believing instead that they remained part of the Union, then their rights (see the Tenth Amendment) would still be guaranteed under the Constitution, denying Lincoln the power to free the slaves. This is demonstrated by the fact that he lifted no finger to free those slaves that were under U.S. control.
4. The Emancipation Proclamation was merely a public relations ploy. It was, as I mentioned, to incite insurrection among the slaves. It was an attempt to turn Lincoln's illegal war into a humanitarian mission and win over those who were sympathetic to the South's right to secede. It was also meant to drive a wedge between the Confederacy and its European allies who, had they intervened, would have been viewed as supporting slavery.
5. Anyone even remotely familiar with Lincoln's speeches and writings knows that freeing the slaves was never his objective. It wasn't until the war seemed to be going badly for the North that it even became an issue.

[Darkwolf377]

"To say that Lincoln had the power to end slavery with the stroke of a pen"

I never said that.

A lie in the first line is usually an indicator of a slavery apologist. Later.

[Non-Sequitur]

It was, as I mentioned, to incite insurrection among the slaves.

How about sticking on a barf alert when you say that?