Editing Emancipation Proclamation (section)

===Military action prior to emancipation===
The [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850]] required individuals to return runaway slaves to their owners. During the war, in May 1861, Union general [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Benjamin Butler]] declared that three slaves who escaped to Union lines were [[contraband (American Civil War)|contraband of war]], and accordingly he refused to return them, saying to a man who sought their return, "I am under no constitutional obligations to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be".<ref name="NYT_20110411">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited| date=April 1, 2011| title=How Slavery Really Ended in America| author=Adam Goodheart| work=[[The New York Times]]| access-date=April 3, 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref> On May 30, after a cabinet meeting called by President Lincoln, "Simon Cameron, the secretary of war, telegraphed Butler to inform him that his contraband policy 'is approved.'"<ref>Oakes, James, ''Freedom National'', p. 99.</ref> This decision was controversial because it could have been taken to imply [[diplomatic recognition|recognition]] of the Confederacy as a separate, independent sovereign state under international law, a notion that Lincoln steadfastly denied. In addition, as contraband, these people were legally designated as "property" when they crossed Union lines and their ultimate status was uncertain.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/living-contraband-former-slaves-in-the-capital-during-and-after-the-civil-war.htm | title=Living Contraband – Former Slaves in the Nation's Capital During the Civil War | work=Civil War Defenses of Washington | publisher=National Park Service | access-date=June 29, 2013}}</ref>