I must admit I was ignorant about Juneteenth until the past couple of years. Just wanted to educate myself a bit about it, so I read On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed this weekend. It was an excellent read.
Working on Juneteenth?
- Thread starter Mr Janny
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They may have had the telegraph but they were also part of the confederacy and had been for 2 years prior to the emancipation proclamation, so why would they enforce an order given by someone who they did not view as their leader?
Also, something interesting that is overlooked by some, the emancipation proclamation only applied to the states that left the union. The few border states that didn’t leave the union but still had slavery, didn’t have that abolished until December of 1865 when the 13th amendment was ratified.
I think the point would be that it wasn't some "innocent mistake" or lack of knowledge. It was a decision by slavers to keep people enslaved. And even if you want to say "well of course they wouldn't have enforced it when it was issued," the war had several different "end points." They could have freed their slaves then.
Right, but also my point was that this wasn’t even the end of legal slavery in the US. It didn’t happen until December of that year. It was still legal in a few states that didn’t secede and the 13th amendment was ratified.
The emancipation freed slaves in Confederate states only, and the army had to actually physically free the slaves in those states until the war was over. There weren't a lot of Union troops in Texas during, or even shortly after the war. Also, slavery was still legal in "Border" states until the passing of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865.
You think the southern slave owners, who thought Lincoln was a tyrant, were just going to free their slaves because Lincoln said so?
I’m not surprised that it took force of arms. What I was specifically referring to was more being up that the last slaves freed were in the north
