Thoughtful response...
Lincoln did say paraphrasing “if I could save the union with freeing a single slave I would do so.”
To me, that sounds like using slavery as a way to maintain power and control. Similarly the EP is quite restrictive, and uses slavery/freedom as a means to secure power.
He knowingly (because he all of a sudden respects the constitution on the issue of slavery) does not include any territories over which he has control...I don’t buy it.
Did the constitution prevent him from closing newspapers in opposition to him? Did the constitution percent him from having his army arrest the Maryland legislature?
Not to his mind. The Constitution allows for suspension of civil rights in case of invasion or rebellion. Both of which were in progress at the time.
You might want to look up how the Founders handled the Tories, many of whom were just honest men who didn’t change their loyalties fast enough.
They were dealt with, by the Founders themselves, much more harshly than Rebels were.
BTW, Lincoln’s statement that he had no right to interfere with slavery within a state other than as a military matter was not sudden. He’d been saying it over and over in public for most of a decade.
BTW, the EP did free slaves in areas under Union control. Large areas in the Mississippi Valley and along the southern coast were not excluded. 25,000 to 50,000 slaves were freed immediately in those areas.
More importantly, as Union armies advanced through the rest of the war, wherever they went slaves were freed.
By the end of the was, somewhere around 90% of the slaves were freed by the EP. Yet people still run around saying it didn’t free any slaves.
He also said that if he could save the Union by freeing all of them then he would do that.
To me, that sounds like using slavery as a way to maintain power and control. Similarly the EP is quite restrictive, and uses slavery/freedom as a means to secure power.
What it was was a statement of Lincoln's in response to what policy he was pursuing. That police was, to quote from the letter itself, "I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution...If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery."