b'LINCOLN WAS NO EMANCIPATOR. continued from page 12commanding officers.ofhisfriendsandtheirslavesmadecarsforblacks;theSouthhadnonehe had no authority, where Jefferson SomeUnionofficerspermittedithometoKentuckybeforesigninguntil the 1890\'s.Davis was the President. He left those slaveholderstocomeandgettheirthe Emancipation Proclamation. Since"Thedestinyofthenationhasthein bondage where he had the Authority runaways.EightfugitiveslaveswhoKentucky never ceded from the Union,Negro as its pivot." Frederick Douglass.to Free them. December 18, 1865 was reached Fort Pickens for freedom werethe slaves there were not freed by theThe African American slave that pro- the real date of freedom, when the 13th heartbrokenwhenCommanderA.J.proclamation.vided the balance of power that savedAmendmenttotheU.S.Constitution Slemmer ordered them taken back toA Few years ago I spoke with Williamthe Union and made the United Stateswas ratified. Pensacola and delivered to their mas- L.Katz,authorofbooksincludingofAmericapossibletodaywastheThe Great Emancipators who nobody ters, which was a death sentence. BlackIndians,TheBlackWest,opinion of Abraham Lincoln. On Marchremembers were the Abolitionists and "I have raved and I have wept aboutand Black People who made the Old26, 1863, he wrote Andrew Johnson,Congressionalleaderswhohelped that Fort Pickens affair," wrote aboli- West. He told me that during the Civil(vicepresident)"Thecoloredpopula- pass the 13th Amendment.Heres the tionistLidiaMariaChild.Someoffi- War, before the fighting of each battletionisthegreatavailableandyetamendment: cers forbade slaves from entering theirstarted,aconfederatesoldierwouldunveiledforceforsavingtheunion. lines.Prominentamongthesewasride through the union side to see ifThebaresightof50,000armedandAMENDMENT XIII Henry W. Halleck commanding in theany of their slaves had run away anddrilled black soldiers upon the banksSection 1. Neither slavery nor invol-Department of Missouri, who orderedjoined the Union Army. (You can findof the Mississippi would end the rebel- untary servitude, except as a punish-that no fugitive should come into histhis information in some of the bookslion at once."ment for crime, whereof the party shall troops.thatIhavementionedattheendofOn March 29, 1863, he said "To nowhave been duly convicted, shall exist this article).availourselvesofthisforceisverywithin the United States, of any place Not all Union officers were unsympa- Lincoln was happy for the South toimportant, if not indispensable."subject to their jurisdiction.thetic toward fugitive slaves. At Ellicottkeep its slaves but opposed the exten- Section2.Congressshallhave Mills,Maryland,ColonelAlfredH.sion of slavery into the new territoriesGovernor Seymour of New York saidpower to enforce this article by appro-Terry of the Fourteenth New York sup- like Kansas and Nebraska. These were"Itisaresource,whichifvigorouslypriate legislation. ported his men in refusing to deliverplaces "for poor (white) people to go toappliedwillsoonclosethecontest. six runaways to their master. Despiteandbettertheircondition."LincolnThemostfamousactinAmericanSOURCES: Africa\'s Gift to America, the fact that Negro soldiers had foughtgrewupdirtpoor.Theserefugeesofpolitical history The EmancipationForcedintoGlory,Lincolnandthe for the United States in the Revolutionpoorwhitesoftheslavestates,wereProclamation,freeingallAmericanNegro,TheDevil\'sOwnWork:The and in the War of 1812, a federal lawworse off than a slave with a kind mas- Black Slaves never happened.Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to barred black men from serving in stateter.Lincoln\'sstandwasveryimpor- WhatLincolndidwas"free"theReconstruct America, The Constitution militias, and there were no Negroes intant,becausetheseterritorieswereslaves in the Confederate States whereof the United States.the United States Army.slowly being admitted into the Union "Thisisawhiteman\'swar!"(as Oregon and Kansas) if they became Everywheretheyturned,Northernslavestatestheywouldincreasethe Negroes were confronted by such state- power of the slave bloc in Congress. ments. The Lincoln Administration andAnother part of the Northern popula-the Republican press, even antislaverytion opposing Lincoln were the poorer, newspaper,theNewYorkTribune,andunskilledwhites.Theybelieved declaredemphaticallythatthepur- that the war was being fought to free poseofthewarwastherestorationthe"Ns"whowouldbecomeaneven oftheUnion,andthattheissuesofgreater competitor for their jobs. Race slavery and the Negro had nothing toriots were common; hatred of a black do with the conflict.skin great. Northern cities like Boston, In the spring of 1862, Lincoln waitedNew York, Philadelphia, had so-called twodays,makingsurethatsomeJimCrowCarsseparaterailway 18 NOVEMBER 2020 BOCNEWS.com'