Quote of the Week: September 22, 1862
“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.”
On this day in history, Sept. 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln proclaims slaves will soon be ‘forever free’.
Well, slaves in “any State or designated part of a State” that happens to be “in rebellion against the United States” (where the US had no power to actually free them) were “freed,” but those in other states (Hello, Maryland!) and parts of states (Take me home, West Virginia!) were not.
It was, as we say, a consummate political move, by one of the greatest politicians who ever lived.
Imagine if he’d lived to serve a third term and run Reconstruction, and root out every last Rebel in the South. We’d have none of our current problems, and the only lynching you’d read about in the history books would be the hanging of Klansmen after fair trials.