From slaves to contraband to self-freed men

Abraham Lincoln did not legally free any slaves in 1863. He did, however, psychologically unleash the slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. His Executive Order, grudgingly announced in September 1862, and formally issued in January 1863, had the immediate effect of enabling the enlistments of slaves as Union troops. Those enlistments sealed the fate of the South, and doomed its rebellion, by converting its black shearers into spearers!

In fact, those 200,000 black troops, and the millions of "contraband" self-liberated slaves, saved this Union militarily on the battlefield, and garnered a new status freedmen, self-freed men!

After the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution granted the freed men formal citizenship status, after military necessity had ended, ruling-class white men of the South, reconciled with their counterparts of the North, to deny the emoluments and incidents of true Constitutional freedom to these self-freed black men! These we yet fight for today, on every level, daily!

Wake up! The "freedom war" is still being fought! Present arms!