re: Washington, DC freed its slaves on this day in 1862. Hooray for Emancipation!

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So the narrative is that the war was fought to end slavery, but slavery wasn’t ended in the union capital until a little more than a year after the start of the war.

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Lincoln begged and pleaded with states on the fence to stay in the union, promising that he was not aiming to free their slaves, and they could keep them if they remained loyal. He stated over and over again, even during his state of the union address before the war, that ending slavery was not his goal, only preserving the union. Slavery was not even ended officially until after the war, with the 13th amendment. The emancipation proclamation did not ‘free the slaves’. The only states it applied to were the ones ‘in rebellion’, and therefore, by definition, not even part of the United States at that time.

There is a tremendous amount of confusion and misinformation out there about what actually happened during the civil war period. No matter what your opinions are about it there is a ton of documented fact that has been rewritten or simply ignored. Memory holed.