I'm talking about what Lincoln, as president, could have actually---legally---offered slaves of loyal Union men. The Confiscation Acts and the Emancipation Proclamations were wartime measures, only affecting areas (and slaveowners) in rebellion. Lincoln did not have the ability to grant freedom to slaves of loyal Union men.

Now, he did encourage loyal slaveholding states to pass emancipation voluntarily. Even the official, national end of slavery was accomplished by Congress --- not by an executive order.