In the wake of the George Floyd murder and subsequent social unrest, there is considerable momentum to name Juneteenth as a national holiday celebrating the end of slavery. On June 19, 1865, the last enslaved African-Americans were liberated in Galveston, Texas. While Juneteenth is celebrated in many parts of the country, the Florida celebration to mark the end of slavery is on May 20 (1865), when the Emancipation Proclamation was read from the capitol steps in Tallahassee by the Union military governor General McCook.
Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, written shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Maryland) in September 1862, was issued by executive order on New Year’s Day, 1863. Contrary to popular belief, it did not end slavery in America. Rather, it only applied to the eleven seceded states of the Confederacy not under Union control. Because enslaved humans were considered personal property and protected from confiscation by the 5th Amendment, the remainder would not be officially liberated until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in late 1865. I don’t believe that the 13th Amendment or the follow-on two reconstruction amendments would have been ratified had not the 11 Confederate states disenfranchised themselves by seceding from the Union.