Did Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation actually free any slaves?
Early in the Civil War, to keep the border states in the Union, Lincoln resisted the demands of radical Republicans to free the slaves. Military commanders and Congress, though, whittled away at slavery on their own. The Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862 allowed captured or runaway slaves who had been in use by the Confederacy to support the Union effort instead and gave real freedom to slaves belonging to anyone actively participating in the war against the Union.
