“Too bad the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.”
HA, yeah, that really annoyed me the first time I read it. All the slaves under Lincoln’s jurisdiction, were still slaves. Only the slaves in the states in rebellion were freed (or were to be freed if the South didn’t surrender, is that it?).
But, of course, none of those slave owners or their elected representatives acknowledged Lincoln’s authority, so it was essentially moot.
Is it the most famous legally moot declaration in history? Or are there scores of them?
Nope, because throughout the war Union armies moved through the South, and particularly after the Emancipation Proclamation slaves escaped to them seeking freedom and causing chaos in the Southern economy and wrecking the South's ability to wage war. It was massively successful.