Mike Parker: Juneteenth and the end of slavery
Last Thursday, many observed the latest federal holiday – “Juneteenth.” The term “Juneteenth” is the compression of “June Nineteenth” – the day in 1865 that Union Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War. Roughly 250,000 enslaved people received their freedom that day.
Granger’s order, General Order No. 3, read as follows:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
Many today observe “Juneteenth” as the end of slavery in the United States, but slavery still existed after that date. While many today believe that the Emancipation Proclamation decreed the end of all slavery in this country, Lincoln’s proclamation was a targeted military order. At the beginning of the Civil War, the war’s aim was to prevent the secession of the Southern states and preserve the Union. Even though sectional conflicts over slavery had been a cause of the war, ending slavery was not a goal of the war.
This point becomes plain when we look at Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address. Lincoln said in this address on March 4, 1861:
“Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
That focus changed on September 22, 1862, when President Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation decreeing that enslaved people in those “states or parts of states still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863,” would be declared free. One hundred days later, with the rebellion unabated, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious areas “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
With this Proclamation he hoped to inspire African American people, especially those enslaved people in the Confederacy, to support the Union cause. Another purpose of the proclamation was to keep England and France from giving political recognition and military aid to the Confederacy.
Because the decree was a military measure, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It exempted slaves in parts of the Confederacy already under Union control. Of course, the freedom the proclamation promised depended upon Union military victory.
Work still needed to be done to eradicate slavery from this nation. Beginning on January 31, 1865, Congress passed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would prohibit slavery in this nation. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified December 6, 1865, provided:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment finally abolished slavery in our country.
Mike Parker is a columnist for the Neuse News. You can reach him at mparker16@gmail.com.
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