Juneteenth has passed if you look at the date on the calendar. Yet Juneteenth is important to remember as not a fixed date on a calendar but as a span of time. The emancipation of slaves was a process.
Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery continued in certain areas like Texas, where the last 250,000 were freed on June 19, 1865.
We live in a time where “States’ Rights” have again come to the forefront of politics regarding certain issues like Abortion. States’ Rights have often been used to obfuscate and distract from the root cause of the Civil War, which had always been the issue of Slavery.
A Pew research poll from May 18, 2011, indicated that 48% of Americans believed the Civil War was over states’ rights, with 38% saying it was fought over slavery. Southern states were concerned with an imbalance of political power. The most distinct example of this is the 3/5 compromise of 1787, where three out of every five slaves were counted towards a state’s total population, which in turn granted greater representation in Congress. The “States’ Rights” argument falls apart when you look at published statements for the reason these states seceded.
For example, Mississippi said, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world.” Others, too, would list Lincoln and his support of abolition as their reason to secede. In the constitution created by the Confederacy, the institution of slavery is enshrined therein under Article 1. Sec. 2.3. as well as Sec. 9.4 and again, under Article IV sec. 2.1 where slaves are explicitly referred to as property.
The issue of slavery tore the country apart and plunged us into a Civil War that pitted North against South, brother against brother, father against son.
After two years of bloody fighting, on July 1, 1863, the Army of the Potomac (Union) and the Army of Northern Virginia would meet at the small Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. Robert E. Lee’s aim in invading the North was to draw the Union army into the open on northern soil and destroy it in one decisive battle.
The first day saw Maj. Gen. Henry Heth’s rebel forces engage with a Union Brig. Gen. John Buford’s brigade of dismounted Cavalry. Buford’s Cavalry held off the rebels long enough for reinforcements to arrive before Union forces ultimately pulled back to Cemetery Ridge and defensive positions that would be vital on the second and third days.
The second day of battle saw Lee attack the flanks of the Union forces. The 2nd day is perhaps most widely recognized for Col. Chamberlain’s 20th Maine and their charge at Little Round Top. On the final day of July 3, 1863, Lee directed his attention to the Union Center during a massive attack that was preceded by an artillery barrage consisting of 150 cannons. The barrage began at 1 p.m. and would last for two hours.
With ammunition running low, 12,500 Confederates would begin their 1-mile march over open ground in what would become known as Pickett’s Charge. Lee’s big gamble would end in failure, with almost 50% casualties. Pickett’s division was virtually destroyed. When Lee instructed Pickett to look to his division, Pickett replied, “General Lee, I have no division.”
The battle at Gettysburg was purely accidental and yet escalated to become the deadliest and bloodiest battle of the Civil War (Antietam is the single bloodiest day). Fought over three days, the battle of Gettysburg saw a combined total of 165,620 casualties — 93,921 Union and 71,699 Confederate forces. The total estimated casualties at Gettysburg are estimated to be over 31,000 Union and 27,000 Confederates for a combined total of 58,000 casualties.
Still, despite the heavy losses, the war would continue for another two bloody years. Gettysburg was the high-water mark of the Confederacy. Union morale was reinvigorated, and three days after the battle, the Philadelphia Enquirer likened Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg to Napoleon’s Waterloo.
In November of 1863, the same year the battle had been fought, a speech that lasted just two minutes would be given that would become synonymous with the battle. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address marked the dedication of the National Cemetery of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
As we celebrate July 4th and our independence from Britain, let us remember Lincoln’s words that our nation was conceived in Liberty and is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That our dead have not died in vain and that we take increased devotion that our nation and its government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
