To the editor:

Although Lincoln may have considered the Emancipation Proclamation “the central act of his administration,” as reported in the Journal-World on Feb. 10, it should be noted that the proclamation did not free a single slave in any northern or border state. In fact, Lincoln specifically worded it to exclude from freedom any slaves in Union-controlled portions of Louisiana, where the North held New Orleans and its surrounding parishes, and northern Virginia.

Slaves in the North, including those “house servants” of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s wife, of which Grant was legally considered the owner under the laws of the time, were not freed until December of 1865 — about eight months after Appomattox — when the 13th Amendment took effect and abolished slavery.

Robert W. Ramsdell,

Lawrence