[HamiltonJay]

As I said it was a POLITICAL document. It kept Europe out of the war, and they very much moving to involvement and doing so on the side of the south....

Once the EC was signed European involvement became impossible

[hanamizu]

As I said it was a POLITICAL document. It kept Europe out of the war,

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Not disagreeing with you about that. My point was that Lincoln could justify it as a military measure. Before the E.C. some slaves reaching Union lines were actually sent back to their owners since the Fugitive Slave Act was still the law.

Lincoln’s portion was complex and sometimes contradictory. He held the southern states had no Constitutional right to leave the Union and therefore hadn’t. War was never declared because that would imply that the C.S.A. was in fact a nation. Yet when the war ended, Lincoln put conditions (much lighter than what came to be after he died) on states being readmitted.

But by the E.C. making the war about ending slavery rather than preserving the Union, the E.C. did keep Europe from getting involved or even recognizing C.S.A. independence.