The emancipation proclamation was absolutely an executive order. It was issued on September 22, 1862. The 13th amendment didn't get passed federally and ratifie

The emancipation proclamation was absolutely an executive order. It was issued on September 22, 1862. The 13th amendment didn't get passed federally and ratified by the states until 1865. I agree the way it SHOULD work is that congress passes laws and executive orders describe how those laws get enacted. But we've seen more powerful executive orders, with the most dangerous coming about during the W Bush administration. People are fine when a candidate they like uses those increasing powers of "good" but then scream when it's used by Bush/Trump for the same purposes. Executive orders have limits, specifically to offices that are directly under the Executive Branch (military, homeland security, intelligence, etc.) and so far Trump's orders actually fallen carefully within those limits. He's been testing the limits of those jurisdictions and federal judges have struck them back. In reality, they should have been doing that years ago with other presidents, but instead we got decades of predator drones, warrantless wiretapping and secret kill lists.