Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for supressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
The excepted parts are the areas under Union control at the time. The only slaves really emancipated were those who emancipated themselves. President Lincoln exercised no authority in the unoccupied portions of the Confederate States of America.
I get soooooo tiresd of doing this time and time again. READ THE CONSTITUTION, DAMNIT!!!! Lincoln had no authority to free slaves in states or areas of states that were under the jurisdiction of US Courts. To do that required an Amendment to the Constitution which did not happen until Dec. of 1865. As Commander in Chief, he did have the power, under military order, to free slaves in areas that rejected the authority of US Courts and were in rebellion. Were any slaves suddenly freed on Jan. 1, 1863 when the EP was issued? No. But with each passing day as Union troops advanced, from that point forward until June 19, of 1865 when Union General Granger took control of Texas and read the Emancipapion Proclamation and freed 250,000 Texas slaves, several million slaves were permantly freed under the terms of the EP.
I get so tired of doing this over and over again.