(October 3, 2014 at 4:15 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" said:
Quote:"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as
slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall
be then, thenceforward, and forever free;
Thus, it did not "free" a single slave. That was left to the army.
And that means there was nothing 'voluntary' about it.
I'm certainly NOT arguing that point. What I'm presenting as my understanding of the historical context is that the Civil War was not started for the purpose of freeing the slaves.