Replies

One major problem. He had no legal authority to do so.

"You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional--I think differently. I think the Constitution invests the commander in chief with the law of war, in time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that slaves are property. Is there--has there ever been--any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us, or hurts the enemy?"

The Supreme Court ruled in the Prize Cases that the secessionists had the status of foreign combatants even though they were domestic.

President Lincoln clearly had the power to issue the EP.

Or would you rather it not have been issued?

Your heroes all thought of the slaves as property -- not human at all, right?

Walt

President Lincoln clearly had the power to issue the EP.

Ya think? The US Supreme Court disagreed.

There are, without doubt, occasions in which private property may lawfully be taken possession of or destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of the public enemy; and also where a military officer, charged with a particular duty, may impress private property into the public service or take it for public use. Unquestionably, in such cases, the government is bound to make full compensation to the owner.
... Our duty is to determine under what circumstances private property may be taken from the owner by a military officer in a time of war. And the question here is, whether the law permits it to be taken to insure the success of any enterprise against a public enemy which the commanding officer may deem it advisable to undertake. And we think it very clear that the law does not permit it.
Chief Justice Taney, Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. 115 (1851)

Your heroes all thought of the slaves as property -- not human at all, right?

Your despatch (sic), asking in substance, whether, in case Missouri shall adopt gradual emancipation, the general government will protect slave owners in that species of property during the short time it shall be permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received.
Abraham Lincoln, 'To John M. Schofield', 22 Jun 1863, Collected Works Of Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, ed, Vol 6, p. 291

Not my hero.