Rather, he once told a black audience that there "must be a position of superior and inferior.4" James A Rawley clarifies this stating that Lincoln "placed the nation uppermost – above peace, above abolition, above property rights, and even above the constitution.5" Other ulterior motives are suggested by Hutchins who believes the Emancipation Proclamation "helped ease the Union army's shortage of soldiers6" and Chambers who believes it favoured "helping the Union sustain itself domestically and internationally.7" Neither historians suggest the Emancipation proclamation helped African Americans in the "de jure" or "de facto" sense. The two historians and myself disagree with Borritt who chooses to write that "it would be more accurate, even if more awkward, to call it the war for the American Dream.8" However, Borritt does not consider that Lincoln once told a friend that his "paramount object [was] the struggle to save the union and it [was] not either to save or destroy slavery,9" therefore demonstrating that he was not committed to the equality of African-Americans in the "de facto" sense. Kennedy agrees with Rawley's view stating "The Emancipation Proclamation did not free those held in bondage.10" Conversely, I agree with Martin who believes "the Emancipation Proclamation gave African American slaves the hope of freedom,11" as demonstrated when many slaves began to desert their plantations, refused to work or, in Louisiana, "erect gallows from which to hang their oppressors.12" Therefore, the 14th Amendment may have granted effective equality in the "de jure" sense but I believe it is clear Lincoln himself did not desire equality in the "de facto" sense and therefore it was unattainable in the early 1870's.
After the Emancipation Proclamation, the Age of Reconstruction saw the introduction of Black codes in many Southern States as white officials, who had served the Confederacy, were elected to govern.