The Emancipation Proclamation alone makes America the most powerful nation on earth.

[Octafish]

4. No quibble. You are correct. The 13th Amendment...etc. etc. etc.

I got it. Most importantly, thank you for taking the time to weigh in and clear up the record.

Here's where I got my idea an interview with Lonnie Bunch of the National Archives with Michel Martin of NPR

Seeing how so few Americans living in today's material world slow down long enough to consider the import of the world of ideas, I wanted to remind DUers about Lincoln putting his ideas about the Civil War and its purpose into policy.

The comparison of Lincoln with his political descendants was clumsy, but important, considering the conservatives in power have done all they could to roll back political, social, and economic justice.

Finally, I hope others will discover the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation as the embodiment of an idea, sort of what Jorge Luis Borges called hrönir in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," ideas that come to mind and later appear as objects to become the every day reality.