How was it possible that Abraham Lincoln, the Union president, could emancipate the slaves in the Confederacy?

If Abraham Lincoln was the president of the United States, how was it possible that his Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in a different country (the Confederacy)? Wouldn't that be saying for example, the president of Canada saying all Americans have a right to shoplifting, and all of a sudden, we are allowed to steal from stores? I just don't get how it's possible for the President of one country to make one statement that changes the other country. Like how is that possible?





Thanks,





Eric|||It's a little difficult, but Lincoln could and could not emancipate the slaves in the Confederacy.





He could in that the South, though having declared itself independent of the rest of the nation, was not yet independent of the rest of the nation. Remember, they were fighting a war of independence. It's one thing to declare yourself independent of your parent nation, it's something else entirely to be independent. As a nation the US did not become independent of the rest of the British Empire when it declared it's independence. It had to win the war to make that declaration true. Unless the parent nation willingly let's the new nation go when it declares it's independence, then the new nation must fight and win a war of independence in order for that declaration to become a reality. And during that war it is still subject to the laws of the parent nation.





Which brings us to the couldn't part. As the new nation has declared itself independent of the parent nation it does not have to obey the laws passed by the parent nation. Those are now laws of a foreign power. As a new nation, even though it has not yet broken away from the parent nation completely, it will have put a form of government in place which passes the laws it's citizens, the loyal ones anyway, are to be governed by.





Lincoln knew this, and take a look at the wording of the Emancipation. Only slaves in those areas of open rebellion against the federal government were freed. In other words, slaves in the border states and those areas of the Confederacy which were in Union hands remained in slavery. Lincoln's actual purpose with the Emancipation was two fold. First, remember that even though the new nation does not have to obey the laws of the parent nation it is still subject to them, making it's failure to obey them a criminal offense. Lincoln was making the Union armies a police force. They were now seen as enforcing the law that was put forth in the Emancipation. However, it only went into effect if the commanding general of a particular area actually enforced it and not all the Union generals enforced it. The second purpose of the Emancipation was to ensure that European nations did not openly support the Confederacy. It was well known even then that they were supporting the Confederacy, but they had not sent troops to aid the Confederacy in gaining it's freedom. Military observers were sent with the purpose of deciding whether or not their nation should send troops. But a sticking point was slavery, European nations would have been more likely to openly support early on if the Confederacy had done away with it early on. And had the Emancipation not been put into place they still might have openly supported the South even with slavery in place. But the Emancipation said to the European nations that supposedly this was a war to free the slaves. Meaning that the South needed a truely momentous victory to convince Europe to openly support it, a victory on Northern soil which never came (there were some of lesser importance, but none big enough).|||I suspect it's a rhetorical question. He freed the slaves in areas he didn't have control. You didn't ask why, so I won't explain. You asked how. He did it by proclamation. That's why they call it the Emancipation Proclamation.|||He didn;t see it as a different country ,he believed in the " United " bit .I'm no historian ,but I hope I remember correctly ,|||The confederacy was BULLSHIT, magicman. Lincoln did not RECOGNIZE IT as a separate country.





And FYI? If it had been recognized as such, or if Lincoln failed to keep the Union together, then France, England, Germany, Spain whoever, would have come in here, chewed us up and spit out the pieces. There would have been NO United States and guess who wouldn't have existed if that were true?





YOU!





So before you start complaining about what America's ONLY CONSCIOUS PRESIDENT did or didn't do, show some GOD DAMNED RESPECT!|||First the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave. It applied only to areas controlled by the confederacy. Slaves in the North and areas controlled in the South by the army remained slaves.





What it did do was to place the United States on the moral high ground. Both France and England were considering recognizing the confederates. This would have provided the South with many benefits and create a possible second front Canada. However, both nations had taken the lead in eradicating slavery.





The North was now committed to ending slavery. The confederacy had enshrined slavery in it's constitution. Neither England or France could now recognize the confederacy without having voters turning the government out.





As an side, the confederacy wasn't a separate country. In "Texas vs White" the Supreme Court found succession to be unconstitutional. No state had a legal right to leave the union.