Juneteenth and U.S. Civil War Policy on Slavery
“Juneteenth”- June 19th, 1865, Galveston, Texas is
the date and the location where U.S. troops liberated
enslaved persons, who had been nominally freed over two
years earlier by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on
January 1, 1863. Three months before June 19th, in
April, Lee surrendered to Grant and Lincoln was
assassinated. Juneteenth does not commemorate the
emancipation of the last black Americans held as slaves
in the U.S. However, the commemoration of Juneteenth
serves as a marker that helps contextualize the process
of emancipation in the U.S. during the Civil War.
Juneteenth’s most obvious point is that the
Emancipation Proclamation did not liberate all the
slaves, nor was it intended to. But I am getting ahead
of myself. This monograph is an explanatory list that
can serve as a tool, as an instrument for you and your
students to historically contextualize the events of
June 19, 1865. We shall focus this summary on the
policies of the U.S. government under President
Lincoln.
The position of the Republican Party’s candidate,
Abraham Lincoln, in the 1860 presidential election was
to oppose the creation of new slave states.
Furthermore, the Republicans stated that they would not
attempt to abolish slavery in the existing slave
states.
The Republican position, however, meant that in the
future, free states would have a great majority over
the slave states in both houses of congress.
Southerners claimed that a free state majority,
combined with a Republican president, meant a loss of
legislative power for the slave states. For decades,
the South had sought to defend its economic interest,
such as import tariffs, with the threat of secession.
Now, for the record, the threat of session had been
made by some Northeastern leaders during the War of
1812-14. Earlier from 1804 to 1807, Vice-President
Aaron Burr plotted with others to secede a western
portion of the US and northern New Spain to create a
new republic.
But returning to the topic of Southern session, the
slave-owning plantation elites (cotton, tobacco, rice,
sugar) had over the course of two centuries convinced
and gradually radicalized the majority of the white
middle-class, non-slave-owning small farmers, and free
white workers into believing that they were one group,
one region that had to defend its economy, political
power, and natural right to own slaves as property.
Fueling the belligerent spirit supporting this identity
concept was the Southern culture of fighting, dueling,
and just threating a duel to intimidate the other party
to backdown. Dueling, violence, and intimidation had
become a regular affair in the congress. See Freeman’s
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road
to the Civil War (2018). Add to this outlook the
actions of John Brown in the late 1850s and you get a
more complete perception and attitude of the general
white Southern population. Additionally, for decades
they feared a Haitian style slave rebellion. Indeed, in
this context, from 1860 to 1861, many Southerners came
to support secession as the only way to defend their
supremacy. They believed that a Republican president
and free state congressional majority (1860= 18 free
and 15 slave states) that would prevent the creation of
new slave states would tip the balance of power
established by the Missouri Compromise in 1820. They
claimed this trend of growing Northern power would
embolden abolitionist and give the free states the
votes necessary to abolish slavery in the U.S. This was
seen as an imposition on the South by outsiders, by the
Northern and Pacific Coast states. Furthermore, the
emancipation of slaves without compensation to the
owners could be a loss of a billion dollars.
Additionally, they asserted that only a state could
abolish slavery and not the federal government, that
states were not prevented by the U.S. Constitution from
seceding; and that slavery was a natural condition and
property right based on white supremacy. My view is
that this phenomenon is one of most consequential
examples of social conditioning, peer pressure, and
institutionalized manipulation by a minority to secure
the radicalized support of a majority for specific
objectives.
As an aside, you may find it interesting to
research pro-Confederate “colored creole” slaveowners
in Louisiana and Confederate Native American units in
the Indian Territory.
Following the November election of 1860, the
process of secession and formation of the Confederate
States of American ran from December 20, 1860 to May 20,
of 1861. The South had initiated hostilities on January
9, 1861 by firing against the troop transport ship Star
of the West and more directly with the bombardment of
Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Not all slave states
joined, or were allowed by the federal government to
join the Confederacy. These “loyal” slave states were
known as “border states” and included Missouri,
Kentucky, the new state of West Virginia, Maryland, and
Delaware. And let us not forget that Washington D.C.
had legalized slavery, although in 1850 it became
illegal to buy and sell slaves in city limits.
Returning to the original point, the Republican
position in 1860 was not to free slaves in states where
it was legal. Evidently, one can argue that the Civil
War propelled the processes toward emancipation.
This leads us to the U.S. policy on slavery in the
wake of Southern hostilities. The Crittenden-Johnson
Resolution of July 1861 stated that the aim of the war
was to preserve the unity of the U.S. by suppressing
the secessionist rebellion. It was not a war to
liberate slaves. Republicans and loyal Democrats feared
that the white population would not support the war
effort if the emancipation of slaves were a policy
objective. Furthermore, the Republicans were trying to
be consistent with their political platform.
However, the Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862,
over time provided a clever opportunity to emancipate
some slaves in Confederate controlled areas by
initially confiscating them from rebel owners. Under
these acts, a slave that had fought or served to
support the military activities of the Confederate
forces would be confiscated and freed. It was hoped
that he would serve in the U.S. armed forces against
the rebellion. Other slaves, men, women and children,
who were found in rebel areas or ran away seeking
refuge among U.S. forces were confiscated as enemy
property “contraband” and could be held in bondage by
the local commander as necessary labor for the war
effort. Ironically, this made the U.S. government the
owner of confiscated slaves. But later, U.S. commanders
opted to freeing slaves and recruiting the men for
military service, for which many volunteered for
enthusiastically. We hope that you will research the
history of the valiant and indefatigable Civil War
service of the black soldiers and sailors of the U.S.
forces. Returning to the topic of the Confiscation
Acts, they were not only a vehicle to harm the already
blockaded South, but to emancipate part of the enslaved
population. Let us also consider that a commander may
not want to use material army resources to care for
confiscated slaves, when he could otherwise free them.
The next major development in the policy regarding
the emancipation of slaves were Lincoln’s executive
orders of September 22, 1862 and January 1, 1863. The
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22nd
announced that all slaves in Confederate controlled
areas would be declared free by Presidential order on
January 1, 1863. This would hopefully incentivize the
Southerners to surrender, even if done in a piecemeal
manner, such as parts of states. Note, what Lincoln was
telling the Southerners: surrender, become loyal, and
you will be able to keep your slaves. The Southern
states did not surrender. The Emancipation Proclamation
of January 1, 1863 went into effect. Great battles were
to follow- Vicksburg and Gettysburg. There was also the
Manhattan anti-draft, anti-rich, and anti-black
uprising in July 1863. The war continued into 1865 with
hostilities ending from April through May accompanied
by Southern surrenders over the course of the year.
President Andrew Johnson Proclaimed the Civil War over
in August 1866, nine months after the abolition of the
slavery by the 13th Amendment.
We shall refrain from discussing the other
motivations and consequences of the Emancipation
Proclamation. Nevertheless, we strongly encourage you
to research them. Suffice it to say here that:
(1) The Emancipation Proclamation did not liberate all
the slaves in the U.S. or in the Confederacy (C.S.), of
course, not recognized by the U.S.
(a) It did not apply to or free the slaves in those
slave states that remained or were forced to remain
loyal to the U.S.; such as Missouri, Kentucky, the
new West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The
slaves of Washington D.C. had already been
emancipated in April 1862. But why not liberate
slaves in the border states? For one thing, the
economy had to keep running in these loyal states.
Furthermore, Lincoln did not wish to push some of
the slave-owners in these states to switch-sides
and support the C.S.
(b) The Emancipation Proclamation did not free
anyone still held as a slave in those parts of a
rebel state that had been seized and occupied by
the U.S. armed forces prior to January 1, 1861.
Recall, the Proclamation only applied to areas
under Confederate military and governmental
control. Therefore, legally a slave could be held
as confiscated property by the U.S. armed forces in
those areas. Following the great battles of 1862,
Tennessee came under U.S. military occupation. The
Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to that
state. The Military Governor of Tennessee, future
Vice-President and President of the U.S., Andrew
Johnson, freed his own slaves in August 1863 and
abolished slavery in that occupied former
Confederate state in October 1864, well after the
Emancipation Proclamation. We strongly encourage
you to research Andrew Johnson’s presidency.
(c)The Proclamation only applied to slaves held in
areas under Confederate control, meaning that those
persons were nominally free, but not physically so.
These “freedmen” would have to:
(i) runway on their own from their enslavers
evading the Confederate police and military
patrols to reach U.S. units or vessels.
(ii) wait for U.S. forces to capture the area
and be liberated. This is what happened to
those who were still in bondage and
were liberated in Galveston on June 19, 1865.
During the war, Lincoln’s generous Ten Percent Plan
encouraged Southerners who took a loyalty oath to write
a new state constitution that abolished slavery in
their state. Therefore, a former rebel state would, by
its own state constitution, emancipate its slaves
rather than the federal government doing so- an act of
state sovereignty. By this means, the Reconstructed
state of Louisiana abolished slavery in 1864.
When did slavery end in the “border states”?
Maryland’s new constitution of 1864 abolished slavery.
West Virginia was invaded by the U.S. Army early in the
war. It became an occupied zone. However, there was a
strong anti-Confederate faction of local leaders that,
with federal support, seceded from the Confederate
state of Virginia. Therefore, it was in U.S. loyalist
hands. Most of West Virginia was not subject to the
Emancipation Proclamation (49 out of 50 counties). As a
condition for U.S. statehood, Lincoln insisted on a
form of gradual emancipation following statehood. Here
is where the March 1863 Willey Amendment to the state
constitution came into play. Discussing this matter in
general terms, West Virginia adopted a program of
gradual and generational emancipation. The first slaves
would have been freed in 1867. Note, that the Willey
Amendment was passed after the Emancipation
Proclamation went into effect. Nevertheless, as the
Civil War was coming to an end and in anticipation of
the proposed 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, the West
Virginian state legislature abolished slavery in
February 1865. The slaves of the border states of
Kentucky and Delaware were not freed until the passage
of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865, nearly six
months after “Juneteenth” and two years after the
Emancipation Proclamation.
As a sidenote worthy of deconstruction, Mississippi
did not ratify the 13th Amendment until 1995 and did not
file its ratification until February, 2013.
We already mentioned the emancipation of slaves in
the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862- a municipal
holiday in that city called Emancipation Day.
Interestingly, the liberation of slaves in D.C. was
executed with government compensation of no more than
$300 to each owner and $100 paid to any D.C. freedman
who volunteered to leave the U.S. and settle in another
country.
Forms of slavery persisted and continue to exist in
the U.S. and other countries in illegal and disguised
ways. In the free state of California during the Gold
Rush and the Civil War, an adult white male could
legally serve as the guardian to indigenous children
“wards” based solely on his own testimony under oath.
He would simply say that he had the child’s parental
consent or that the children were orphans. The latter
could have been true, due to the practices of state
hired agents who sometimes killed “hostiles” for
privately paid scalp bounties, rather than relocate
them to army reservations. As for the children’s
parental consent, well frankly it was not necessary
since according to California law, only a white man’s
testimony would have counted. Native Americans or
Chinese could not testify against a white person. These
sort of legal guardian arrangements, documented in
Heizer and Almquist’s The Other Californians (1977),
provided a legal way for whites to use indigenous
labor. We also had the illegal enslavement and forced
labor conducted by some shipping companies in the form
of “Shanghaiing” a sailor. Woe to the unsuspecting
visitor to a Portland, San Francisco, or Seattle
tavern. Then there was a practice that is sometimes
discussed as a form of temporary enslavement: namely,
prison labor assigned to private enterprises. This is
justified often as punishment or a form a
rehabilitation. That topic is itself another full
discussion subject to debate.
It is undeniable, however, that our country
continues to have clandestine slave immigrant laborers
and sex slaves under different conditions of bondage.
Today, there are people being illegally captured,
restrained, guarded, transported, physically tortured,
and forced to perform acts against their will for the
economic benefit and/or wishes of others. Illegal
slavery persists and liberations occur.
We hope that this survey of the U.S. policy
regarding slavery during and immediately following the
Civil War will serve as a useful instrument for you and
your students to contextualize Juneteenth and explore
related topics in greater depth.
On behalf of the History Department,
Walter