Nearly 20 percent of Trump’s supporters disapprove of Lincoln freeing the slaves

[D Gary Grady]

38. The Emancipation Proclamation in reality freed millions of slaves

There is a popular historical myth that runs more or less like this: "The Emancipation Proclamation was mainly a PR effort aimed at winning support from anti-slavery advocates in Britain. It didn't apply to the four slave states that remained in the Union because Lincoln needed their political support, and given that the Confederate states obviously would not obey an order from Lincoln, the Proclamation had no actual effect." This sounds superficially quite plausible, but it's false.

First, the Emancipation Proclamation could not possibly have applied outside the rebellious areas because the only legal basis on which Lincoln could issue it was the general law of war and the Confiscation Acts, under which Lincoln could, in furtherance of the war effort, order seizure of enemy property such as wagons, buildings, munitions, crops, and in this case chattel slaves. On the day the Proclamation was issued, January 1, 1863, only a small number of slaves were freed by federal forces operating in rebellious areas. But as Union troops advanced farther and farther into the Confederacy, their officers carrying small printed copies of the Proclamation, millions more slaves were freed, until by mid-1865 the vast majority of slaves had been liberated.

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas, and announced that the Proclamation would be enforced in the state (hitherto largely outside the fight and hence with few federal troops). On that date in 1866 former slaves in Texas celebrated "Juneteenth" as the first anniversary of their freedom under the Proclamation. Obviously those men and women were not imagining when and why it had happened.

In fact, by the time the 13th Amendment was ratified in December of 1865, there were only two states in the Union that had not already outlawed slavery on their own, Delaware and Kentucky.

Needless to say, de facto slavery existed even after 1865 in various forms, and the effects of slavery, jim crow, and the like remain with us today. History is never simple. But we should give credit where it's due, and the Emancipation Proclamation deserves to be recalled for its greatness.