Emancipation & abolition

One hundred fifty years ago today President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation. It took effect as of 1 January, 1863.

Many people with only a cursory understanding of US history think that this was the mechanism by which “Lincoln freed the slaves.” However, it declared the freedom of slaves only in the states then in rebellion against the Federal government. That meant that some 900,000 slaves in the so-called “free states” were still legally held as chattel goods.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution took effect in December 1865. That’s when slavery was finally abolished in the United States. That was 22 years after Great Britain ended the practice, 13 years after France ended it (for the second time) and 142 years after Tsar Peter I ended it in Russia. (In 1861 Tsar Alexander II finally ended the practice of serfdom, slavery’s heir.)

I'm not convinced we've truly abolished slavery even now; it's just in a different form. But still...