Have you read the late historian Lerone Bennett's magisterial "Forced Into Glory -- Abraham Lincoln's White Dream"? (Bennet also wrote "Before the Mayflower" back in the '60s). In "Forced," he argues that the Emancipation Proclamation (and Lincoln) did not "free" a single slave -- no, not one. Why not? Because the document applied only to those states that were still in rebellion and over which Lincoln had no control. Those four border states which remained neutral but still had slavery could have been forced to free their slaves but Lincoln did not push the issue: kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri.

No. it was the military defeat of the South combined with the 13th Amendment which actually freed the slaves -- and Lincoln was dead before either of these events occurred.

Great history lesson, as usual.