If the proclamation had been immediately operative, and had
liberated every bondman in the jurisdiction to which it applied, it
would have left over a million slaves in actual thraldom. Indeed, Earl
Russell, the British premier, was quite correct when, in speaking of
the proclamation, he said: "It does not more than profess to
emancipate slaves where the United States authorities cannot make
emancipation a reality, and emancipates no one where the decree can be
carried into effect."
For the failure of the proclamation to cover all slaveholding
territory there was a plausible reason. Freedom under it was not
decreed as a boon, but as a penalty. It was not, in theory at least,
intended to help the slave, but to chastise the master. It was to be
in punishment of treason, and, of course, could not consistently be
made to apply to loyal communities, or to such as were under
government control. The proclamation, it will be recollected, was
issued in two parts separated by one hundred days. The first part gave
the Rebels warning that the second would follow if, in the meanwhile,
they did not give up their rebellion. All they had to do to save
slavery was to cease from their treasonable practices.
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