Tag

Emancipation

Emancipation as a War Measure Blog

Emancipation as a War Measure

Although not an “abolitionist” in the strict sense, Abraham Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery. Lincoln’s view was common within the Republican Party. Abolitionists were generally despised in both North and South--many would be considered radical even by today’s abysmal moral standards. Abolitionists, e.g., Wendell Phillips and Lysander Spooner routinely criticized Lincoln for his tepid anti-slavery views. Lincoln’s focus was…
John M. Taylor
September 19, 2025
Lincoln and Coincidence? Blog

Lincoln and Coincidence?

Oct 12, 1861, Confederate ambassadors James Mason and John Slidell set sail for England, Mason to be Minister to England and Slidell Minister to France. They were bound for England via Cuba where they boarded a British packet ship the HMS Trent. Was it mere coincidence that a Union warship, the San Jacinto, was notified by the US Consul in…
Rod O'Barr
February 8, 2023
A Dangerous Rock Rolling Down Hill Blog

A Dangerous Rock Rolling Down Hill

Part 6 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. “He who controls the past controls the future.  He who controls the present controls the past.”  George Orwell “Live asses will kick at dead lions.”  Admiral Raphael Semmes In the long run of history, the story of…
Clyde Wilson
April 11, 2022
Emancipation After the War Blog

Emancipation After the War

Part 5 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Early in Reconstruction the staunch Unionist William Sharkey was appointed governor of Mississippi by Andrew Johnson.  Sharkey said that he believed that half the African American population of the state had perished in the war.  This may not be…
Clyde Wilson
April 5, 2022
Emancipation Blog

Emancipation

Part 4 in Clyde Wilson’s series “African-American Slavery in Historical Perspective.” Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Many Americans doubtless tend to assume a rosy view of emancipation, of brave boys in blue rushing into the arms of newly freed slaves to celebrate the day of Jubilee while handing out Hershey bars to children. Nothing could be further…
Clyde Wilson
March 29, 2022
The Amendment That Never Was Blog

The Amendment That Never Was

The date of the latest federal holiday, June 19th, was touted as the one marking the end of slavery in America. While few today would argue with the idea of honoring emancipation, the selection of that date in 1865 leaves much to be desired. If one truly wanted to commemorate the legal end of American slavery, the date for such…
John Marquardt
July 14, 2021
Slavery and Emancipation 101 Blog

Slavery and Emancipation 101

The roots of the myth that slavery was primarily a white Southern institution were planted three decades prior to the War Between the States by the abolitionists in New York and New England.  This myth also included the idea that those same abolitionists of the 1830s had introduced the freeing of slaves in America.   Actually, however, the first seeds…
John Marquardt
November 13, 2020
Confederate Emancipation Review Posts

Confederate Emancipation

  The following is a transcription of a speech given at the inaugural Education Conference of the Alabama Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans:  ‘The best men of the South have long desired to do away with the institution and were quite willing to see it abolished.’ – Robert E. Lee ‘Most informed men realized that slavery was not…
James Rutledge Roesch
March 15, 2016