Today in Supreme Court History: January 1, 1863

1/1/1863: Emancipation Proclamation issued.

President Abraham Lincoln

Comments

[Kleppe]

Interesting bit of trivia about the Emancipation Proclamation is that it freed precisely zero slaves. Slaves under southern jurisdictions understandably did not benefit, but even the slaves held by the Union Army were not emancipated. It's a pity more people don't know this.

[Dan Schiavetta]

When a baby is born, it has lived exactly 0 days. It’s a pity more people don’t know this equally useless, trivial fact.

[Frank Drackman]

actually some peoples would call progressing from a 2 celled Zygote(See Kirtland, Arthur) to a Sentient Multicellular Organism capable of a productive existence =(definitely NOT Kirtland, Arthur) "Living".
But hey, Abortion's the only thing keeping the White Race in the "Race" demographically (OK, and the Black lives don't matter/On Black Lives don't matter murder rate), so what? me worry?

Alfred. E. Drackman "56 killed in Chicago this weekend?? Good!"

[bernard11]

Sorry, but many slaves escaped to areas controlled by the Union army, and were not re-enslaved. Some enlisted in the Union Army.

[Frank Drackman]

and were killed by General Nathan Forrest? yay Emancipation!

[gormadoc]

You didn't even try to couch it with "immediately" so you you're just incorrect.

[Frank Drackman]

I know, it, of course I took Amurican His-Straw at Jefferson Davis High Screw-el, (still the name, amazingly) Montgomery, Alabama. Maybe having a teacher named Nathan Bedford Forrest Wallace Lee helped.

[Holden C]

The entire essence of Eugene Volokh's argument for nearly uncensored Free Speech is that almost all human conduct, regardless of how malicious, harassing, intentional, and uncivil, should be allowed online simply because they involve language in some way. Eugene Volokh hence argues that basically the entire range of human conduct as it can be conducted over the internet should be afforded blanket, unquestionable protection by the First Amendment.

This view is absolutely incorrect, wrong, and dangerous.

Not surprisingly, this view is also espoused by Google and Big Tech, who's real purpose in supporting "free speech" and lack of user privacy is to make big money off of selling and trading personal information and data. Eugene gets paid by Big Tech so is likely in on this scheme. His analyses almost categorically fail to take into account (or even mention) the harms done to victims of cyberharassment and cyberstalking, and violations of their constitutional rights such as privacy and freedom from harassment. This shows Eugene is not honest and impartial in his analysis, but has a hidden agenda to peddle "Free Speech Absolutism" and "Free Speech Expansionism", both of which directly benefit Big Tech and lines Eugene's own pockets with money.

[Jerry B.]

Which has what, exactly, to do with Josh Blackman's article about the Emancipation Proclamation?

[Michael D]

I am wondering the same

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Three words (four if counting a date) do not constitute an article, not even in the most desolate, can't-keep-up backwater one might find.

Keep trying, clingers.

[Frank Drackman]

Squeal Like A Pig Reverend!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You have the familiarity with standard English (and the worldview) of the average indigenous Deliverance character, Frank. To what do you describe your illiteracy, bigotry, and general lack of character? Was it your circumstances, your nature, or the clinger combo platter that produced such a bitter, disaffected, no-count movement conservative loser?

[Frank Drackman]

in Standard English it's "No account" (HT Pubic Schools), and I'd bet my Penis girth vs yours I live in a more "Diverse" part of the Country (Reverend) than you (do). Bigotry? I'm a MOTT, treat more Peoples of Color in an Afternoon than you converse with in a Decade (OK, I'll give you credit for the Wendy's Drive Through) and been wounded in the Service of our Great Nation (have you?)
and not really a "Conservative", in fact I'm a Registered(make that "Certified" "DemoKKKrat" although that's mainly for a Goof, so I can vote for Real Race-ists like (The Reverend(are you friends) Al Sharpton) and Poke-a-Hontas....

[Krayt]

The benefit of the First Amendment isn't that there's high value in every blurble barfed out of the mouth of some yokel.

It's in stopping the powerful from swinging the 2 wood in their tyrant's golf bag.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Prof. Volokh doesn't like it when (at least some) commenters refer to his fans as yokels. He has censored for that -- criticizing or mocking clingers -- more than once.

(If my assertion is incorrect, Prof. Volokh, feel free to state your objection. Bonus points if you use the term "sl_ck-j_ed" or "c_p succ_r" in your attempt to defend your record on viewpoint-driven, partisan censorship.)

[Cal Cetín]

"this view is also espoused by Google and Big Tech"

Are you sure?

[David Nieporent]

I'm pretty much getting the idea that whatever happened to Holden was entirely deserved.

[John F. Carr]

Sorry, Lincoln. These days it is politically sound to celebrate Juneteenth instead.

[Sarcastr0]

Which itself owes a lot to Lincoln, so I think he's fine with it.

[Cal Cetín]

Go and ask him. Maybe you'll catch up to him before he gets to the theater...oops, never mind.

[Syd Henderson]

That's because this anniversary is already a national holiday, just like the anniversary of the surrender of Vicksburg.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Cranky old right-wing Whites who can't stand 'all of this damned progress' are among my favorite culture war casualties.

Try to overcome the bitterness and enjoy the time you have left until replacement, clingers.

[Frank Drackman]

My favorite Culture War Casualties? Rodney King (with Floyd George a close second) , put that in your Progressive Peace Pipe and Smoke it! or 1/1024th of it, with Progressive Senator Poke-a-Hontas (D, MA)

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These are your peeps, Volokh Conspirators.

Do you still expect deans of strong law schools to hire more movement conservatives for faculty positions, based on the suggestions and performance of this White, male, stale, right-wing blog?

[Frank Drackman]

you're the one who brought up "Culture War Casualties" "Rev",
not sure what's more deserving of ridicule, the "Casualties" or your title of "Rev"....
of course I could have mentioned that poor "Gentle Giant" in Ferguson MO (do you even remember his name?) the one shot for assaulting the poor Cop trying to keep the Right of Way free, or the Kid that looked like our former POTUS Hussein (Jeez, African Amurican and, you look like Him?)
Speaking of "Movements" I need to take one,
you really need to up your game with your better's, "Rev"

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

Which does ironically relate to the Proclamation, because it celebrates the last slaves freed pursuant to it, but, conspicuously, not the last slaves actually freed, because the proclamation didn't apply to states in the Union.

Which is why it was only a state holiday in Texas until very recently.

Why exactly would blacks in Maryland care to celebrate Juneteenth, then? The last slaves there weren't freed until December 6th of the same year, with the ratification of the 13th amendment.

[Frank Drackman]

because they're as the great Jimmy Buffet would say, "FINS" (figure it out Reverend Kirtland)

[bernard11]

Why exactly would blacks in Maryland care to celebrate Juneteenth, then?

The same reason people in Hawaii, say, celebrate the Fourth of July?

[Cal Cetín]

By a happy coincidence, Juneteenth is close enough to July 4 to step on Independence Day. Accidentally, that is.

[Sarcastr0]

That's nonsense. Does New Years step on Christmas?

We can keep our holidays straight.

There is no war on the 4th of July.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

John Adams wasn't that impressed with it as a date to celebrate. And who are we to argue with John Adams?

[StellaLink_the dog]

"Why exactly would blacks in Maryland care to celebrate Juneteenth, then? The last slaves there weren't freed until December 6th of the same year, with the ratification of the 13th amendment."

Not surprisingly, you've got that wrong. Slaves in Maryland were freed when Maryland abolished slavery on Nov 1, 1864. When the 13th was ratified, only two states had failed to abolish slavery: Kentucky and Delaware. As neither the proclamation nor the amendment applied in the Indian territories, "legal" slavery did not cease to exist in the US (including the territories) until the Creek tribe abolished slavery on Jun 14, 1866.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I had Maryland and Delaware mixed up. But the question remains valid: What significance does Juneteenth have in states where slavery was abolished later?

[Dan Schiavetta]

The only remaining slavery (in Kentucky and Delaware) was trivial. Only a few thousand slaves who were mostly farm hands and house servants, not picking cotton. When the 13th Amendment was finally closed proclaimed on December 18, 1865, it was barely a ripple.

[Frank Drackman]

Probably wasn't "Trivial" if you were the one slopping the Hogs, or cleaning up after Sleepy Joe's Great Grandfather

[Brett Bellmore]

The number of slaves remaining in Texas on Juneteenth was pretty trivial, too. That's generally going to be the case when you're talking about when you finished ending something, rather than when you started.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Texas was a huge slave state and most of it had not been occupied. News traveled slow in those days, esp. among slaves. Learning of total emancipation was a very big deal.

[David Nieporent]

Setting aside Brett's mangling of the facts, why is he whitesplaining what blacks would want to celebrate?

[Brett Bellmore]

Complaining about 'splaining' is just a form of bigotry, insisting that some people are ineligible to discuss certain topics due to their immutable characteristics.

[Cal Cetín]

Well, as to the Emancipation Proclamation not freeing slaves - not until the Union started taking some Confederate territory. And then there were the slaves who didn't wait to be liberated but escaped into Union lines.

Emancipation was a process which began in 1861 with the beginnings of self-emancipation and Butler's "contraband" doctrine and proceeded with accelerating momentum - the Emancipation Proclamation playing a very key role but not the only role. Confiscation Acts, abolitionist movements in border states, and finally the adoption of the 13th Amendment, also helped.

If we *must* single out one date why not Final Emancipation Proclamation Day - which happens to be a holiday anyway so it won't involve another civil-service day off?

[Cal Cetín]

Indeed, emancipation began before war as fugitive slaves emancipated themselves without waiting for the cover of a war emergency.

[Cal Cetín]

Or even earlier, when the Northern states abolished slavery without fighting a war over it.

See Arthur Zilversmit, *The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North* (University of Chicago Press (c) 1967).

[Frank Drackman]

after failing to make Slavery work in every single Northern State....(tough to keep those Slaves in Upstate New York when it's a 1/4 mile run to Canada)

The first state to begin a gradual abolition of slavery was Pennsylvania, in 1780. All importation of slaves was prohibited, but none were freed at first, only the slaves of masters who failed to register them with the state, along with the "future children" of enslaved mothers. Those enslaved in Pennsylvania before the 1780 law went into effect were not freed until 1847.

[John F. Carr]

In Massachusetts slavery was abolished by the Supreme Judicial Court (= Supreme Court) in the late 18th century. They decided the new constitution did not allow slavery. I gather some people who voted for the constitution may not have realized they were abolishing slavery. In that era references to "all men" might mean human beings, adults, adult men, or adult white men. Like today we argue over what "equal protection" means, because it does not mean strict equality and it does not mean nothing at all.  Married women gained legal independence about a century later.

[Cal Cetín]

As I understand it (and I'm not necessarily an originalist in the pure doctrinal sense), originalism kicks in when the law is vague. If the law uses plain and unambiguous terms, there's no vagueness to interpret.

So here's how the Massachusetts Constitution started off:

"All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness."

https://malegislature.gov/laws/constitution#constitution

Is there any vagueness in here into which slavery could creep? Any room for the operation of originalism?

[Frank Drackman]

Simple, Blacks weren't considered "Men" any more than women were.