How long after a President leaves office does it take for his policies to take?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves on American soil immediately

Was your history education that poor?

*in the slave states

Good to see this forum is as pedantic as ever. My point is that the Emancipation Proclamation is an example of a piece of policy that had a more-or-less instantaneous effect and one which would have no direct carry-over into any subsequent administration.

They were a separate country. The Emancipation Proclamation did nothing outside of keeping the British out of the war.

2,000-5,000 slaves in occupied territories were immediately freed, and more than 3 million slaves were eventually freed by the Proclamation. To say the Proclamation did nothing is simply ignorant to history.

But the point is how immediate the reaction was. 5,000 slaves does not make up for the millions still left in the unoccupied territories, who were freed whenever the Union Army arrived in their area.