How did the emancipation proclamation change the war for the north?

Answer 1

The CSA was going to make an alliance with Britain, who disliked the idea of slavery. Lincoln used the Emancipation Proclamation as a way to turn the Civil War from "The Between The States," to a war about slavery.

Answer 2

It was a two fold win for the North. First, it took the issue of storing property (in this case slaves) away from the North. Prior to this proclamation, property has certain requirements associated with it to be used for war. Captured slaves were property under the current system so they needed to be housed and fed. By freeing only these slaves, Abraham Lincoln no longer had to feed and house these people. They were free to go about their business and were no longer the responsibility to the United States.

Slaves in the North were still considered slaves. Slaves in the South were still under Southern law. So, the only real change here is that the North no longer needed to care and spend money on these people.

The second issue that it solved was one of moral high ground. The North, before this act, was really the side with the lower moral standards. They were for a stronger Federal Government and the associated control that went with it. Less freedom for the people and a less freedom for States was not an easy sell.

By switching the issue to the moral high ground of slavery, Lincoln now had a clear focus and untouchable reason to fight.

This is not to say that part of the reason for the war was not slavery. There was an element of this. The North was envious of Southern prosperity through agriculture. The North had no need for slaves the way the South did. The industry of the North relied on different situations and labor. Slavery was a moral value of the North was able to look down upon their Southern counterparts, because they didn't need them. The south, on the other hand, was developing machinery that would allow the work of many farm hands to be done by a single hand. Due to this issue, slavery was already being outmoded before the war. It would have died with or without a war. As a result, most people, on both sides, realized (at the time) this was not a war about slavery as much as it was about the States rights.

The war did not end slavery. It was still legal after the civil war. Slaves were bought and sold after Lincoln's death and the reuniting of the country. It was finally outlawed in December of 1856 with the 13th Amendment.