Posted on 02/26/2021 5:55:34 PM PST by nickcarraway
Archer Alexander’s fame came largely after his death. Depicted in bronze kneeling before President Abraham Lincoln, his story also received renewed attention recently amid recent calls for monuments connected to slavery and colonialism to be pulled down. In the wake of global anti-racism protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in the U.S., such controversial monuments became the target of Black Lives Matter protesters across the world, including the UK and Belgium.
In the U.S., statues of Confederate leaders and the explorer Christopher Columbus were toppled. In Washington, D.C., protesters made attempts to tear down the controversial Emancipation Memorial, a statue of a freed slave kneeling before President Abraham Lincoln. The bronze memorial in Lincoln Park was erected in 1876 to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation, the executive order signed by Lincoln that ended slavery in the Confederacy. It was commissioned and paid for by Black people after the Civil War, but now protesters say the position of the formerly enslaved Black man at the feet of Lincoln is offensive and should be removed.
For many, the statue does not in any way show how enslaved African Americans pushed for their own emancipation. As a matter of fact, scores of enslaved African Americans fought for their own freedom. Such was the case of Alexander, the real-life model for the newly freed slave in the controversial Emancipation Memorial, also called the Freedman’s Memorial.
Ask an African person about his or her family. You find everybody has 1,000 “sisters” — virtually every woman around the village is a “sister.” Makes genealogy a bit difficult.
“Too bad the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.”
HA, yeah, that really annoyed me the first time I read it. All the slaves under Lincoln’s jurisdiction, were still slaves. Only the slaves in the states in rebellion were freed (or were to be freed if the South didn’t surrender, is that it?).
But, of course, none of those slave owners or their elected representatives acknowledged Lincoln’s authority, so it was essentially moot.
Is it the most famous legally moot declaration in history? Or are there scores of them?
Bump
More importantly: Did Muhammad Ali know?
Regards,
“Too bad the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.”
So it freed no one on January 1, 1863. But it did free thousands as soon as the Union army occupied Confederate held territory. Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, some (but not all) Union commanders felt legally compelled to return runaway slaves to their owners, the Fugitive Slave Act was still the law of the land.
As the war and the Union Army progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation did, in fact, free most (but not all) of the slaves in the United States. The 13th Amendment freed the rest, although by the time it was passed, most Union slave states had already abolished slavery.
It did not free slaves in Union held slave states like Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. The proclamation only applied to states in rebellion.
Um, that's not correct. Tens of thousands of slaves were freed instantly, and the US Army used it to effectively free several million slaves prior to passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Emancipation Proclamation had a massive impact on the South's ability to maintain its economy and wage war.
True, but you said the Emancipation Proclamation freed nobody. That's completely wrong. It freed slaves in areas under rebellion, creating an incentive for slaves to escape to areas occupied by the Union army and giving Union armies the legal power and responsibility to free slaves as they captured territory. Which is exactly what happened.
Nope, because throughout the war Union armies moved through the South, and particularly after the Emancipation Proclamation slaves escaped to them seeking freedom and causing chaos in the Southern economy and wrecking the South's ability to wage war. It was massively successful.
It did not free slaves in Union held slave states like Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. The proclamation only applied to states in rebellion.
Interesting detail.
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