Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth, a day celebrated in some parts of the world, including our own United States, as the day that slaves in Galveston, TX were freed from slavery by Union Troops in 1865.

On the radio this morning, local NPR station, there was talk that people in Philadelphia would be reading the Emancipation Proclamation, which they say freed the slaves. I sigh every time I hear this because it didn't free the slaves. Rather, it freed the slaves in the Confederate States, but allowed slave owners in the Union States of Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland to keep slaves. It also allowed slaveowners in Union-controlled New Orleans to keep their slaves, as well as those western counties in Virginia that had seceded from the rest of the state with the intention of becoming West Virginia.

Slaves were not officially free across the country until the 13th Amendment, which was not passed until the end of 1865. I hate to sound like I'm pissing on Juneteenth, or freedom for slaves, but I want to be true to history and I wish we'd stop teaching kids in school that the Emancipation Proclamation had anything to do with really ending slavery.

Lincoln had implemented it as a war-time measure, intended to break the back of the Confederate armies, which were depending on slaves to do the labor of feeding, clothing, and arming the soldiers. As a commander in Lincoln's position, I would have done the same thing, probably sooner, even, but it did not end slavery in this country. That only came after the war.