“I don’t belong to any organized Party, I’m a Democrat.” That’s what humorist Will Rogers said in the 1930’s. The Democrats in 1860 were desperately disorganized. The sitting Vice President John Breckenridge (the Kamala Harris of the time) was nominated by the Southern Democrats as their presidential candidate. The Northern Democrats nominated Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas as their candidate. John Bell, a Democrat, launched a third party bid under the banner of the Constitutional Party looking for some alternative between slavery and abolition in seeking the presidency. Abraham Lincoln was the Republican candidate for President running against a fractured and divided Democrat Party in 1860.
Lincoln had been nominated because he was an abolitionist but not a radical abolitionist like the front runner for the nomination William Seward. Unlike Lincoln, Radical Abolitionists wanted to end all slavery, everywhere, forever. On the other hand, Lincoln hated slavery but recognized its constitutionality. The “Three-Fifths Clause” of the Constitution acknowledged the existence of slavery and how slaves should be counted for the purposes of representation in Congress and for taxation as property. The 5th Amendment guaranteed the government couldn’t take your property without due process of law and compensation. Slaves were property. That meant slavery was constitutional and here to stay barring voluntary abolition by slave owners or a constitutional amendment. Lincoln’s position was slavery should be tolerated where it was, but it should not be allowed to spread to the new territories (like Dakota Territory) being added to the Union.
In 1858 Lincoln said this, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.”
Lincoln was, at least initially, an armchair white supremacist like many Americans are today. He didn’t want slavery to exist. He also didn’t want to mix with Blacks socially, certainly didn’t approve of interracial marriage, but he didn’t want violence committed on people of color to prevent them from living their lives as they wished either. When Lincoln was elected, the South misinterpreted his election and assumed total abolition was coming. Lincoln definitely would have prohibited the expansion of slavery, but he was a lawyer with respect for the law and Constitution and probably would have concluded that, having sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, he was helpless on the question of slavery as President. Southern States began to leave the Union even before Lincoln took the oath of office.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was a war time measure and is misunderstood by most modern-day Americans. It was issued in late September in 1862 and said that any State in rebellion on January 1, 1863 would have their slaves freed. It did not apply to slave states already in the Union which included Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri. Any Confederate States that came back to the Union before January 1, 1863 would have kept their slaves too. If Lincoln’s ploy would have worked, all the Confederate States would have returned to the Union and the war would have been over while slavery would have continued.
In an open letter to New York Tribune Editor Horace Greeley Lincoln wrote this, “If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”
Eventually the Union turned to Black men for help. Approximately 170,000 Black men served and 68,000 died in the Union cause. Nearly three quarters of a million Americans died in the Civil War. After all that carnage, the sacrifice of Black Americans and slaves, and the stubborn recalcitrance of the Confederacy Lincoln came around to the view that not only should Black people be free, but they should be equal. That sentiment was expressed, obliquely, from the steps of the White House to a gathering of the public that included John Wilkes Booth who muttered, “That means nigger citizenship. The man must die.” And die Lincoln did at the hands of John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.
Juneteenth marks the occasion when Union General Gordon Granger told the slaves in Texas that they were free – June 19, 1865. They were freed at that barrel of a gun. Lincoln knew it was an unconstitutional “liberation” of property that would be overturned by the Supreme Court. He knew the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on as far as being a legal termination of slavery. That’s why Lincoln proposed the 13th Amendment to end slavery, constitutionally and forever. That Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865 and that’s when slavery ended – not on June 19th.
The City of Galveston, Texas has celebrated Juneteenth for 150 years. Unfortunately, Juneteenth is a bogus holiday. I’m not saying we shouldn’t celebrate the end of slavery, we should. “Juneteenth” should be “Decemberist” – celebrated on December 6th because that’s when slavery actually ended. A child doesn’t know when their birthday is until their parent tells them. So, if I tell my child on March 1st that his birthday is July 2nd should he celebrate on March 1st (Juneteenth) because that’s when he heard about it or on July 2nd (December 6) when his birth really took place?
Lincoln began his presidency as a man of his times, mildly racist and a believer in benign white supremacy. Lincoln’s story shows how a person can change and grow. At the end of his life Lincoln was a full-on Civil Rights activist and a believer in complete Black equality. It demonstrates that sometimes greatness is thrust on a person no matter how much they’ve tried to compromise, contrive and connive their way out of it. Because of Abraham Lincoln and the 13th Amendment, not Juneteenth, Black people were free and on their way to becoming African-Americans with the passage of the 14th Amendment. Juneteenth is a holiday with its heart in the right place, celebrating an event worth of commemoration but it’s on the wrong place on the calendar.