Ain't that the truth! This is a long excerpt from "The Divided Union," by Randall and Donald, presenting some 1863 observations of the legendary act of "emancipation" (note: most opposition Union newspapers had already been shut down by Lincoln's thugs):
"The stereotyped picture of the emancipator suddenly striking the shackles from millions of slaves by a stroke of the presidential pen is altogether inaccurate. On this point one should carefully note the exceptions in the proclamation itself. The whole state of Tennessee was omitted; none of the Union slave states was included; and there were important exceptions as to portions of Virginia and Louisiana, those being the portions within Union military lines. In fact freedom was decreed only in regions then under Confederate control.
"The President has purposely made the proclamation inoperative [declared the N. Y. World, Jan. 7, 1863] in all places where we have gained a military footing which makes the slaves accessible. He has proclaimed emancipation only where he has notoriously no power to execute it. The exemption of the accessible parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia renders the proclamation not merely futile, but ridiculous." As to the effect of the proclamation The World declared:
"Immediate practical effect it has none; the slaves remaining in precisely the same condition as before. They still live on the plantations, tenant their accustomed hovels, obey the command of their master... , eating the food he furnishes and doing the work he requires precisely as though Mr. Lincoln had not declared them free.... [The state courts] do not recognize the validity of the decree on which he [the slave] rests his claim. So long... as the present... status continues, the freedom declared by this proclamation is a dormant, not an actual, freedom."
"The proclamation is issued as a war measure, as an instrument for the subjugation of the rebels. But that cannot be a means of military success which presupposes this same... success as the condition of its own existence.... A war measure it clearly is not, inasmuch as the previous success of the war is the thing that can give it validity."
"We show our sympathy with slavery," Seward is reported to have said, "by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
"The London Spectator declared (October 11, 1862): "The government liberates the enemy 's slaves as it would the enemy 's cattle, simply to weaken them in the... conflict.... The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."
"On the same date the Saturday Review, in a caustic article, denounced the proclamation as a crime, and declared that Lincoln's "desperate efforts to procure military support will probably precipitate the ruin of his cause."
"Earl Russell in England declared: "The Proclamation... appears to be of a very strange nature. It professes to emancipate all slaves in places where the United States authorities cannot exercise any jurisdiction... but it does not decree emancipation... in any States, or parts of States, occupied by federal troops... and where, therefore, emancipation... might have been carried into effect.... There seems to be no declaration of a principle adverse to slavery in this proclamation."
"It will be noted that Lincoln justified his act as a measure of war. To uphold his view would be to maintain that the freeing of enemy slaves was a legitimate weapon of war to be wielded by the President, and that a proclamation for the purpose would be somewhat analogous to a presidential proclamation blockading an enemy's coast, the legal principle being that a state of war puts the whole enginery of belligerent measures within the control of the President. In the new attitude toward slavery which the war produced it was natural to find considerable support for the view that slavery was a legitimate target of the war power; but it is a matter of plain history that prior to the Civil War the United States had emphatically denied the "belligerent right" of emancipation. Indeed John Quincy Adams, who has been credited by his grandson with having originated the idea of the emancipation proclamation, declared officially while secretary of state in 1820 that 'No such right [emancipation of slaves] is acknowledged as a Law of War by writers who admit any limitation. '"
[Lincoln and Emancipation, in Randall & Donald, "The Divided Union." Little, Brown & Company, 1961, pp.380-382]
Mr. Kalamata
What point are you trying to make here?
Lincoln had absolutely zero constitutional authority to free slaves in states that were not in rebellion against the United States. However, due to the confiscation act passed by congress in August 1861 he did was given the authority to have the military confiscate any property that would help the insurrectionists. This included slaves. Here’s the text of the law that covered slaves.
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That whenever hereafter, during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person claimed to be held to labor or service under the law of any State, shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or by the lawful agent of such person, to take up arms against the United States, or shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or his lawful agent, to work or to be employed in or upon any fort, navy yard, dock, armory, ship, entrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatsoever, against the Government and lawful authority of the United States, then, and in every such case, the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due shall forfeit his claim to such labor, any law of the State or of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding. And whenever thereafter the person claiming such labor or service shall seek to enforce his claim, it shall be a full and sufficient answer to such claim that the person whose service or labor is claimed had been employed in hostile service against the Government of the United States, contrary to the provisions of this act.
APPROVED, August 6, 1861[5]