Self determination is a confused concept, to begin with, really.......
However, if one does a thot experiment, and refers to, and takes seriously, the concept of self determination (confused as it nevertheless is), back in time, to the run up to the Civil War, it is hard to put Lincoln on the right side of the troubled concept.
The self determination of the slaves, so to speak, would have played no part in Lincoln's calculation under that concept, except to give them a reservation, or to transport them, perhaps.
Freed slaves would have played no immediate part, in a Lincolnian, Whig, politically self determining, voting constituency.
The emancipation proclamation was a war measure, like so many others throughout history under similar circumstances.
One has only to think back to similar Spanish initiatives in the later 1500s, and especially the 1600s, re slaves in the lower colonies, offered freedom in Spanish Florida, and sometimes taking it. I would call that Spanish Determination.
I would not call that Wilsonian self determination, however; some might.
The South had much stronger self determination type arguments, such as the arguments of each side were, than the North.
Political arguments based on self determination, leaving constitutional arguments aside, based on organized political will, were stronger, in retrospect, for secession than for continued union, regardless of the issue of slavery.
That the North ended up on the right side of history shows how often the right side of history is the side of the stronger.
Thus the Emancipation is better characterized as Lincolnian Determination than Self determination.
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