I'm just throwing out a trial balloon, as it were. The mechanics behind the Emancipation Proclamation have always fascinated me for some reason. I understand what people might say about rule of law, checks and balances, etc., etc., but even still, the Presidency is the bully pulpit, has been at least since Andrew Jackson and then strengthened with Messrs. Lincoln, Roosevelts, etc., etc. Might as well make good use of it. How 'bout this analogy: The Presidency is like a gigantic sword that must be wielded with great care and precision. When you get a dummy like Dubya in the Oval, well, it's like letting a toddler play with scissors. (Although truth be told, there is enough red tape in government that it rendered him pretty much impotent, wielding a pair of safety scissors instead, and leaving the sharper ones to his cronies. Therein lay the roots of the past eight years' worth of fuckups.)

Near enough as I know it, the Emancipation Proclamation was a major symbolic declaration of the willpower of a strong united federal government to act swiftly and decisively to (a) do the right thing (freeing black Americans from human bondage, which was evil in and of itself), (b) get those newly freed people to stir up discontent as much as possible in the South so as to weaken the efforts of the Confederacy, and moreover (c) give the world a gentle reminder that the Confederacy did not, de jure, exist, as the states had sworn themselves to eternal reciprocal union with the federal government. Plus which it put the damn redneck crackers back in their place (I'm talking about the real nasty ones, the hatemongers, not the good hardworking upstanding friendly slobs that most Americans tend to be. You know what I'm talking about. The fucking inbred trailer-trash -- and I mean real trailer trash, not just down-on-your-luck-temporarily people -- Ku Klux Klowns of the way wrong side of the trax.

Yeah, it's kinda confusing. But I think what it boils down to is Lincoln sort of saying, "All right, ha ha, very funny, you've had your fun with this make-believe entity known as the Confederacy, but now it's time for Uncle Sam to lay down the law and whup your asses into shape, as humanely as possible. We're gonna sorta pretend this thing never happened. The slaves are gonna be freed whether you like it or not, and at some point soon we're all gonna hafta make nice and reunite again. 'Cause if we don't and if you dumb sumbitches don't fall in line, I've got a fella by the name of Sherman gonna set fire t' that thar Georgia peach until it's whistlin' Dixie outta the gap between its teeth."