“had the EP expired upon ‘peace’, you maaaay be able to stretch that 200K figure out as the “freed” number”
What is the argument here? That the feds didn’t finish conquering the Confederacy when it surrendered, and certainly hadn’t physically freed all its slaves, therefore anyone who the feds hadn’t gotten to was not to be free? The EP did not say “At such a time as federal troops physcially regain authority over states or parts of states in which people are engaged in an ongiong rebellion against the U.S., but only while said rebellion is still ongoing...” No, no, no.
It said, “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free...” Henceforward from the issuance of the EP, all slaves then in rebellious states were to be free forever. The idea was not that the slaves were legally free as the feds advanced, and that anyone they didn’t get to before the coming of peace stayed enslaved. Advancing troops were only de facto liberators. The slaves were already de jure free.