Freed all their slaves? Or just the slaves of those in enemy territory?
Today's Democrats have played the race card so effectively against conservatives that conservatives now have a hankering to play the race card back - wrongly thinking the race card can be played both ways. It doesn't seem to work that way.
I don't know what gets into you folks, who think you have some kind of argument to make here, when the truth of the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments should be plenty enough proof that's ridiculous.
The facts are that Lincoln during the Civil War did first what he constitutionally could do, which is emancipate slaves in states then in rebellion against the United States.
At the same time Republicans in congress debated various proposals for nationwide abolition, proposals which ended up as the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.
And yet you people want to twist that all around, making it sound like Republicans didn't really care about emancipation, but the fact is they did, and also unlike Democrats then & now, Republicans cared about the US Constitution.
So what exactly is your problem with that?