So father and son will make the most of their Valentine's Day trip to Mobile, where they plan to show up at the county offices downtown for the curse-free proclamation and then drive for about 45 minutes to Lott Middle School, with its 500 students.
Granted, the proclamation freed only those slaves who were behind Confederate lines, the very place where Lincoln had no power to enforce it.
After the war, the slaves freed by the proclamation would have risked re-enslavement had nothing else been done to confirm their liberty.
Finally, the old canard that the Emancipation Proclamation freed not a single slave, repeated by Bennett, could not be more wrong.
The Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves — that is, taking them away from the South as property — came in 1863, a year and a half in the past.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves and yesterday's inauguration were in some ways bookends to the darkest stain on America's history.
That day Abraham Lincoln told his cabinet of his intention to issue a proclamation freeing slaves in the rebel states, reluctantly agreeing to withhold a public announcement until Union forces had won a suitable victory.
Then, on July 12, in a private conversation with Secretary of State William Seward and Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, Lincoln declared his intention to issue an emancipation proclamation, freeing all slaves in the rebellious states; and on July 22 he presented a draft proclamation to an astonished cabinet.
The proclamation freed very few slaves.
Further, the proclamation freed the slaves of any secessionists who took up arms against the government.
Today, January 1 , 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing 3 million slaves.
