Plus, at least one of your fellow Lost Causers (DL) has even argued that Lincoln's wartime emancipation in Confederate states should have ended with Confederate surrender in April 1865, so that slavery should have been legal in those states too, until the 13th was ratified in December 1865.
The reality is that by the time of Confederate surrenders, slavery was de facto abolished in every state & territory except two: Kentucky & Delaware.
In Kentucky it's estimated about 50,000 slaves remained of circa 500,000 in 1860 and in Delaware maybe 2,000.
So the war itself had freed over 95% of slaves, leaving only a small number to be freed by the 13th Amendment.
That's the truth.
Plus, at least one of your fellow Lost Causers (DL) has even argued that Lincoln's wartime emancipation in Confederate states should have ended with Confederate surrender in April 1865, so that slavery should have been legal in those states too, until the 13th was ratified in December 1865.
I am not a Lost Causer but a Yankee who insists on history being based on facts and not the fictional, ahistoric tales partican hacks, such as yourself, persist in spinning.
The Confederacy did not surrender in April 1865. The Army of Northen Virginia surrendered at Appomatox. German surrender did not end WW2 and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia did not end the Civil War. The war continued. Battles continued in Texas. BGEN Stand Watie in Oklahoma never surrendered; rather he entered into a formal cessation of hostilities.
The United States Supreme Court in the case of The Protector, 79 U.S. 700 (1870)
there were two proclamations declaring that the war had closed, one issued on the 2d of April, 1866, embracing the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the other issued on the 20th of August, 1866, embracing the State of Texas.
The Battle of Palmito Ranch, May 12-13, 1865 is considered the last land battle of the Civil War. It ended in Confederate victory.
https://www.history.com/news/6-civil-war-battles-after-appomattox
6. CSS Shenandoah raids (Summer 1865)The fearsome commerce raider CSS Shenandoah was purchased from the British and commissioned by the Confederacy in October 1864. Commanded by Captain James Waddell, CSS Shenandoah sailed the high seas from Madeira to Australia on a mission to capture and destroy Union commercial vessels. It achieved its greatest success in the months following Lee’s surrender at Appomattox as it decimated the Yankee whaling fleet harvesting the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast. On June 28 alone, the Confederate vessel seized 10 whalers. On August 2, a British ship captain broke the news to Waddell that Davis had been apprehended and the Civil War had ended. Fearing capture by the U.S. Navy, Waddell dismantled the ship’s armaments and disguised its appearance, even painting the hull to resemble an ordinary merchant vessel. For three months, CSS Shenandoah remained at sea before reaching Liverpool, England, on November 6, 1865, and surrendering to British authorities. The raider that had captured nearly 40 ships, more than half of them after Appomattox, fired the last shots of the Civil War and lowered the Confederate flag for the very last time.
Wars are over when governments say they are over.
The reality is that by the time of Confederate surrenders, slavery was de facto abolished in every state & territory except two: Kentucky & Delaware.
The end of the war, regardless of what date is made up for it, did not establish the legal end of slavery anywhere. The Emancipation Proclamation did not automatically declare the end of slavery in any state. Neither did the end of the war.
During the war, it was declared that slaves were considered property and could be seized as contraband property. Slaves seized as property became Union property and were set free by their new owner. Slaves not seized as contraband property had no legal status as free. The end of the war (the actual end) signified the end of any authority to seize any slave as contraband, and it ended any Federal government authority to seize slaves as contraband property and set them free.
Your assertion that slavery was somehow abolished by the end of the war has no basis in reality. The implied cause and effect is fiction. Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment; a sovereign act of the people.
Slavery in New Jersey continued up to the 13th Amendment. In 1865, New Jersey did not ratify, but rejected the 13th Amendment.