Here is what the London Spectator thought of it [Source: April 1865 by Jay Winik, page 248 paperback version]:
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.
Lincoln, while a Congressman, wrote his own fugitive slave law in 1849. It required some governmental authorities to provide means to arrest and return escaped slaves to their owners, but it didn't get passed by Congress. Congress passed a more extensive fugitive slave law the following year. See: Section 5.
And your point is what?
The London Spectator spoke for the business class in England who supported the Confederates because they were the primary source of cotton for their mills. Kind of like the New York Times supporting Obama today.
But the Emancipation Proclamation threw British public support to the Union side because the overall opion in Britain then, aside from the textile mill contingent, was anti-slavery.
Don't be so happy about that British support you saw in those early years of the war BTW. If the South had been successful, the British saw the opportunity to refold them into their empire to again become colonies, and very profitable ones at that.
It was exactly the opposite and frankly Rusbucket, I have lost a lot of respect for you with that post. You and I have had a lot of conversation over the years and I never saw you as a stand waite or central va. type crazy poster. Perhaps, I was mistaken.
For anyone who would care to look at the proposal Lincoln put before the Congress in 1849, Here's a link.
Winik continued:
"In some respects, the Congress was not unfair when it remarked that the Proclamation added little to what it had already done with the Confiscation Act. But in the final analysis, these criticisms miss their mark: the Emancipation Proclamation was the most revolutionary document in the country's history since the Declaration of Independence; it truly began the end of slavery, in the North and the South. The psychological impact of the proclamation cannot be underestimated; Lincoln, in a masterful stroke, had become a personal emblem of freedom, and the Emancipation Proclamation was its parchment. As a war act, it was a stunning measure, imbuing the Northern war effort with a larger moral purpose without overshooting its mark. And for approximately 180,000 blacks - mostly slaves - it was nothing short of a miracle. They would go in to serve valiantly in the Union army."
When Winston Churchill, speaking on the victory at el Alamein, said "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning" nobody dismissed him by saying the German troops still remained in Egypt and Libya. Lincoln's proclamation was not the end of slavery in either the North or the South. But it was most definitely the beginning of the end. A line had been drawn that could not be crossed again. The South could never end its rebellion on the terms of keeping the status quo; their slaves weren't slaves anymore. It definitely set the stage for the next logical step, the 13th Amendment and did much to remove possible opposition to its passage. Those who say that the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing of substance take a very short-sighted viewpoint. The Emancipation began the process of ridding the U.S. of the scourge of slavery, it kept the European powers from joining the side of the Southern slaveocracy, and it helped bring the rebellion to an early end.