Even the famed orator and former slave Frederick Douglass acknowledged as much in his infamous "Independence Day" speech in Rochester in the early 1850s. His basic premise was that Independence Day didn't mean a damn thing to free black men in Union states.
The fact that it would have been unconstitutional if it did apply to Maryland should tell you something as well, shouldn't it?
“The fact that Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” didn’t apply to the “border states” like Maryland pretty much puts the whole idea of slavery as the driving purpose of the Civil War to rest.”
That’s perfectly silly.
Lincoln recognized that he had no constitutional right to end slavery, except for the right of a Commander in Chief to use any necessary measures to win a war. Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, Tennesee, Western Virginia, and New Orleans were under US control, so they were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln was a careful lawyer.
It’s also hard to fathom how a speech by Frederick Douglass in the early 1850s somehow comments on an action by Lincoln in 1862. It’s a matter of record that Douglass became Lincoln’s admirer and friend by 1865.
“The fact that Lincoln’s ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ didn’t apply to the ‘border states’ like Maryland pretty much puts the whole idea of slavery as the driving purpose of the Civil War to rest.”
There were mitigating Constitutional, political, and military circumstances. I think the fact that he waited for two years to recognize slavery as an essential issue in the war effort is a stronger point on its own.