by Jon Dainty Sr.

Created on: March 30, 2009

Slavery ended a very long time before its attendant miseries ceased. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution finished in 1865 what President Lincoln began in January of 1863, the emancipation of slaves throughout the United States of America.

"In 1638 the first African slave was brought to New England, the beginning of what for a century and a half was to be a profitable business enterprise conducted by Massachusetts and Rhode Island slave traders." [Rohr, p. 237]

This is an early irony of American life. Slaves were bought and sold in two states chartered by Puritan Pilgrims and Separatist Protestants, either of which would tell a questioner that they were committed to the good of all. Unfortunately, for quite a long time Negro slaves were not fully understood to belong to that group designated "all." They were neither inanimate objects nor fully accepted as human.

Other nations' use of slaves ranged from staffing for brothels to teachers, policemen, and soldiers. In some contexts, these slaves had specific rights under law. "The situation in the United States was more complex because slavery was a domestic rather than a colonial phenomenon, being the social and economic base of the aristocracy of 11 Southern states." [Britannica 1:35]

In all, perhaps more than 15,000,000 slaves were traded between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, and many of them were kept in the United States for lifelong forced labor. "The Republican Party formed during [the 1850s] around the idea that the [western] territories should remain free. Southerners vowed that election of a Republican president would make secession a certainty, [and] Lincoln was elected as the first Republican president." [Britannica 10:591]

Southern-state slaveholders of the aristocratic class demanded of their governors that they secede from the Union in order to maintain their stocks of laborers and servants. They also held that the North would never allow them to change slowly to another economic model, so this required that they separate from that government and form their own. The Civil War demonstrated clearly that this was a bad idea, though the South had some successes.

Fresh supplies of slaves arrived by ship regularly, despite the best efforts of British anti-slavery groups. "In 1862, however, the United States signed a treaty [with England] conceding the right of [naval] search, which was necessary for effective enforcement [of anti-slavery laws]." [Britannica 27:234]

In August of 1862, President

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