13th Amendment slavery’s true end

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

While Gen. Gordon Granger’s arrival with Union troops in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, to enforce President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in the last of the Confederate states was certainly important to the 200,000-plus slaves his presence freed, it did not end slavery in the United States (“Biden signs Juneteenth bill, creating first new federal holiday in decades,” Web, June 17).The Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves in the slave-holding states that remained loyal to the Union: Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. While Missouri, Maryland and West Virginia had taken action to end slavery by June 19, 1865, slavery remained legal in Kentucky — and ironically, in President Biden’s home state of Delaware — until the ratification of the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1865.

Dec. 6 would thus be a more appropriate date to celebrate the end of slavery in our country.

CLARKE ELLIS

Bethesda, Md.