April,

Yes, sad to say that the North enjoyed the benefits of slavery during the War Between The States. While Lincoln sent his invasion force South to force us back into a once voluntary Union at the point of Bayonette, slavery continued in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and in the Union held places of Missouri and Kentucky.

Lincoln had in his hand the 2nd version of the 13th Amendment, also known as the "Corwin Amendment" and was prepared to offer it to the South. It had already been ratified by 3 Northern States. Had the South decided to remain in the Union, the Corwin Amendment would still be law, and it declared the Slavery as an institution would remain forever in perpituity and Congress would have no authority to change it.

Lincoln admitted West Virginia into the Union as a slave state in 1863.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Confederate States not in Union control, but EXEMPTED slavery where it existed in Union states and Union controled areas of the South.

Slavery was not ended until December 1865 by the 3rd version of the 13th Amendment - 8 months after the war was finished.

The Corwin Amendment, for those not familiar with it, was a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution introduced by Ohio Congressman Thomas Corwin in 1861, essentially as a last ditch effort to avert Civil War. The proposal sought to prohibit the Federal government from interfering with existing “domestic institutions,” i.e. slavery. The amendment was approved in the House of Representatives by one vote more than was required and then passed onto the Senate for voting on March 2, 1861. Again, it was passed with the exact number of required votes, 24. The irony of its passage was that seven Southern states had already voted secession.

As with any proposed amendment to the Constitution it then had to be ratified by three quarters of the states. It was ratified in Ohio, Maryland, and Illinois, but then lost its momentum.

With regard to the slaveholding status of Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, both married women whose families had long histories of owning slaves, however they themselves did not own slaves and did not employ slaves in their households. No one has ever figured out this boy-girl thing when it comes to love. It’s also true that many of Mary Todd Lincoln’s relatives fought for the Confederacy. Lincoln, contrary to the popular belief, was not opposed to the continuation of slavery where it already existed. He was, however, opposed to its expansion into the western territories. Quite simply Lincoln believed that slavery would die of its own volition by the year 1900.

As is correctly pointed out, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in states unified under the Confederacy. A contradiction to be sure, but one that Lincoln, the consummate politician, was willing to maintain in order to prevent border states such as Maryland and Kentucky from seceding from the Union.