Reply #152: You seem to be ignoring....

[DoNotRefill]

that the Emancipation Proclamation ONLY applied to States that joined the Confederacy. Maryland, a slave state, remained in the Union, and slaves there were only freed with the passage and final ratification of the 13th Amendment, which occurred on December 6, 1865. The Confederacy surrendered (and slavery therefore became illegal in the entire South as a function of the Emancipation Proclamation) in May, 1865. In other words, slavery became extinct in the territory of the former Confederacy in May, 1865, but still existed in the North until early December, 1865.

Here's the language of the Emancipation proclamation that's relevant: " "That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. "

It's not revisionist history, it's uncontroverted FACT.