[Lee'sGhost]

Nope. We fought a bloody war to preserve Lincoln’s union. Freeing the slaves didn’t come til the end of the war as a tactic to ensure a union victory, not because it was the objective of the war to start with.

[Svartalfiar]

Nope. We fought a bloody war to preserve Lincoln’s union. Freeing the slaves didn’t come til the end of the war as a tactic to ensure a union victory, not because it was the objective of the war to start with.

Um, that's incorrect. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in January of 1863, and had no effect: Lincoln was attempting to enforce something upon states not under his control - they weren't part of his jurisdictional territory. The War essentially ended 26 April of 1865, with the surrender of the Army of Tennessee, the biggest Confederate force. The last Confederate general to surrender was June 23rd, effectively bringing the last of the Confederate states back under the Union's yoke, and bringing the Emancipation Proclamation to full effect (only in Confederate states).

However, on the Union side, slavery was not fully abolished until the sixth of December, when the 13th Amendment was ratified. Fully six months after the war ended, and nearly three YEARS after Lincoln 'freed' slaves in states he didn't control, but DID NOT free slaves in the states he did.