Had Lincoln proclaimed it, the North would have split in pieces, the South would have won, the Union would have perished, and slavery would have remained.

Lincoln had to wait until the season of anguish and meditation had unblinded thousands besides himself, and thus had placed behind him enough of the North to struggle on to that saving of the Union and that freeing of the slave which was consummated more than two years later by Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox.
But it was during that interim of anguish and meditation that England did us most of the harm which our memories vaguely but violently treasure.

Until the Emancipation, we gave our English friends no public, official grounds for their sympathy, and consequently their influence over our English enemies was hampered.

Instantly after January 1, 1863, that sympathy became the deciding voice.

Our enemies could no longer say to it, "but Lincoln says himself that he doesn't intend to abolish slavery." Here are examples of what occurred: To William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist, an English sympathizer wrote that three thousand men of Manchester had met there and adopted by acclamation an enthusiastic message to Lincoln.