Juneteenth Is About the Triumph of American Freedom Over Slavery

Environmentalists want the Court to punish EPA. If the Court does so, a new chapter will be written for pesticide use.

Jarrett Stepman, Columnist, The Daily Signal

The elimination of slavery in the United States—an institution as old as human civilization but out of step with the nation’s founding principles—did not happen all at once.

During the Civil War, the freeing of slaves came in many stages, starting with President Abraham Lincoln’s famed Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

But a declaration on paper did not mean that slavery was eliminated in reality. Years of hard fighting to save the nation from dissolution and to ensure the freedom of Southern black slaves lay ahead for the Union Army.

Emancipation came in waves and often simply followed the march of the Union Army.

Texas, for example, was far from the main action in the Civil War, so it took longer for the practical effects of Union victory and the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect there. In fact, it took two full months for emancipation to reach the Lone Star State after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Most Confederate holdouts finally capitulated in June, after which the Union occupied the state and put it under military command.  <read more>

Jarrett is a columnist for The Daily Signal.