[GeronL]

This is simply absurd on its face, for the Emancipation Proclamation was the legal authority for the freeing of most of the slaves in the South

So he was a dictator then? Or was this merely an announced goal that needed to pass Congress? A speech is not a legal authority

...

So, Missouri, a union slave state, didn't have to free its slaves?

I don't know if Lincoln was a "white supremacist" anymore than most whites of the north were at the time (they didn't have anything like equality for "free blacks" in the north, more like Jim Crow) but he didn't seem to see them as equals.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>So he was a dictator then? Or was this merely an announced goal that needed to pass Congress? A speech is not a legal authority<<<

You missed my point. He was a dictator in the North where he could have freed the slaves. But not in the South, where he “freed” them. If you don’t believe he was a dictator in the North, do a little research on his actions against the congress, judiciary and the press during the war.