Comments Elsewhere

Tom,

If you’re taking this from the standpoint of concrete historical acts, then the abolition of slavery is a far more complex issue than the unilateral acts of any American politician, involving the actions of millions of people (including the slaves themselves, who often freed themselves by rebelling or leaving; this was nearly as large a military liability for the South throughout the Civil War as the Union army was).

If you’re taking this from the standpoint of legal ritual, the Emancipation Proclamation professed to free only slaves in some of the rebelling states, and as a matter of military necessity rather than as a legal abolition of slavery. Slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was passed not by the unilateral action of the President, but rather by the Congress and the legislatures of the several states, and which was not ratified until well after Lincoln’s death.