IMHO it's unfair to project a personal view of morality onto people of another place and time. Like it or not, slaves were personal property and recorded as such by value on the Federal census. I'm sure you understand that point, even though you may not agree.
Also, the United States (and the Confederate States) differed from Great Britain in that the basis of law was a governing document. The British people have no consitution and lack a reliance on certain tenents, such as no citizen could be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
The Emancipation Proclamation does exactly that, depriving citizens of property without due process of law. Of course Congress eventually acted on this issue, passing a new version the XIII Ammendment. It did so with great difficulty I might add, despite the absence of representatives from most of the Southern states.
Despite a man's personal beliefs as to what consitutes "higher law" or what benefits may acrue from a judge or elected leader acting on his version of "higher law", it's wrong to simply ignore the Constitution. Despite his own long-held ambivalence towards Christianity, Abraham Lincoln preached public morality, that obedience to the law was a citizen's highest duty. Yet, when it served his immediate purposes, Lincoln went outside the law.
It's a classic case of having it both ways.
Lincoln should have introduced his wishes on the matter to Congress and signed into law whatever they passed on the subject.
To return to Al Gore's proposed statement, again IMHO, the concept that any president or judge may simply issue a decree to overturn the Constitution is far more fearful than any good purpose the decree is supposed to remedy.
And that, as Forrest Gump says, is all I want to say about that. I will give you the last word.