Should Juneteenth be on December Sixth Instead?

hoosier

1st Lieutenant
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Location
Carlisle, PA
A great deal of attention has been paid recently to the establishment of Juneteenth (the 19th day of June) as a Federal holiday. This holiday officially commemorates the end of slavery in the United States of America.

Except maybe slavery didn't actually end on that date.

It is a fact that Union Gen. Gordon Granger issued a general order in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, officially proclaiming that, in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States, slavery was at an end and all slaves were free. The proclamation to which he referred was, of course, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued on January 1, 1863. Galveston was apparently the last place in any of the former Confederate states where former slaves learned about the Emancipation Proclamation.

The thing is, the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to slavery in those states which were taking part in the rebellion against the federal government. It didn't say anything about slavery in those states which never seceded.

Slavery in all states was outlawed when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which took place on December sixth of 1865. But it seems to me that technically, slavery was still legal in the Northern states from June 19th up until December 6th.

I don't know how many people continued to be held in slavery in the Northern states after June 19th. I hope it wasn't very many. But if there were any at all, then it doesn't seem entirely right to say that Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States.
 
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