Episode Number
10375
Episode Show Notes / Description
The June 19 Closing Market Report provides a historical overview of the legislative and military milestones that culminated in the abolition of slavery in the United States. The broadcast begins by outlining the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, which established Land Grant Universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to expand equitable access to public education. It then details the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which strategically shifted the Civil War's primary objective toward ending slavery and authorized the enlistment of Black soldiers, a directive subsequently formalized by General Order 143 to create the U.S. Colored Troops. As the conflict concluded with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, the Wade-Davis Bill established stringent Reconstruction protocols for readmitting the defeated states to the Union. The timeline concludes with the formal constitutional abolition of slavery through the 13th Amendment and the enforcement of emancipation in Texas via General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, the historic event now nationally commemorated as Juneteenth.
00:43 The Morrill Acts & HBCUs
05:37 The Emancipation Proclamation
13:25 General Order 143
17:14 Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill
19:02 Surrender at Appomattox
20:29 The 13th Amendment
21:04 June 19, 1865, General Order #3
00:43 The Morrill Acts & HBCUs
05:37 The Emancipation Proclamation
13:25 General Order 143
17:14 Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill
19:02 Surrender at Appomattox
20:29 The 13th Amendment
21:04 June 19, 1865, General Order #3
Transcript
cmr260619
The June 19 Closing Market Report provides a historical overview of the legislative and military milestones that culminated in the abolition of slavery in the United States. The broadcast begins by outlining the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, which established Land Grant Universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to expand equitable access to public education. It then details the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which strategically shifted the Civil War's primary objective toward ending slavery and authorized the enlistment of Black soldiers, a directive subsequently formalized by General Order 143 to create the U.S. Colored Troops. As the conflict concluded with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, the Wade-Davis Bill established stringent Reconstruction protocols for readmitting the defeated states to the Union. The timeline concludes with the formal constitutional abolition of slavery through the 13th Amendment and the enforcement of emancipation in Texas via General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, the historic event now nationally commemorated as Juneteenth.
00:43 The Morrill Acts & HBCUs
05:37 The Emancipation Proclamation
13:25 General Order 143
17:14 Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill
19:02 Surrender at Appomattox
20:29 The 13th Amendment
21:04 June 19, 1865, General Order #3
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. The markets are closed in observance of Juneteenth. Coming up, we’ll explore Juneteenth, the emancipation proclamation that Abraham Lincoln put forth to end slavery in the United States, and we’ll also discuss the War Department’s General Order 143 from 1863, and we’ll do that right here on this holiday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world.
announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
00:43 The Morrill Acts & HBCUs
Todd Gleason: To begin with, let me say that the script for today’s program was not written by me, but rather is taken from the National Archives. And I want to stitch together something a little different as it’s related to Juneteenth for you. We’re going to start in 1862 with the Morrill Act. Now it passed on July the 2nd of that year and it was the act that made it possible for states to establish public colleges funded by the development or sale of associated federal land grants. Uh, Land Grant Universities, for instance. Over 10 million acres were provided by these grants. The new Land Grant institutions, which emphasized agriculture and mechanic arts, opened opportunities to thousands of farmers and working people previously excluded from higher education.
It was sponsored by Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont. The act donating public lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts marked the first federal aid to higher education. But the government’s recognition of its obligation to provide schools for its future citizens dates from the beginning of the republic. In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the Continental Congress wrote, “knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” With this ordinance, Congress established a precedent for the support of public education that would grow to substantial commitments in later years.
Land was the key to the federal government’s early involvement. Now much of this land had been and would continue to be taken from Native American tribes. It was ceded through treaties, agreements, and seizure. In many cases, the federal government did not uphold its end of these treaties. We recognize that here at the University of Illinois. Now these public lands were surveyed into six-mile-square townships, and one-square-mile sections in each township was reserved for the support of public schools. By the way, if you travel very much, you might recognize that six-mile-square township or the one-mile-square section, which is 640 acres across the whole of the United States. It really is the basis by which roads were laid out, and that’s why things are straight. It’s also why many counties are 36 square miles.
Now the land itself was rarely used for school construction, but rather was sold off with proceeds used to fund the school program. The system invited misuse by opportunists, and substantial portions of the educational land grants never really benefited education. Nevertheless, land grant support became a substantial factor in providing education to most American children who could never hope to attend private or charity-supported schools. The Morrill Act committed the federal government to grant each state 30,000 acres of public land issued in the form of land scrip—certificates for each of its representatives and senators in Congress.
Although many states squandered the revenue from this endowment, which grew to an allocation of over 100 million acres, the Morrill land grants laid the foundation for a national system of state colleges and universities. In some cases, the land sales financed existing institutions. In others, new schools were chartered by the states. Major universities such as Nebraska, Washington State, Clemson, and Cornell were chartered as Land Grant Universities along with the University of Illinois. People of color were often excluded from these educational opportunities due to their race.
The second Morrill Act of 1890 was aimed at the former Confederate states and sought to rectify this discrimination. It required states to establish separate Land Grant institutions for Black students or demonstrate that admission was not restricted by race. The act granted money instead of land and resulted in the establishment of several historically Black universities and colleges, what we call HBCUs, including Alabama A&M, Prairie View A&M University, and Tuskegee University.
05:37 The Emancipation Proclamation
Todd Gleason: So the Morrill Act that created the Land Grant University system, spelled M-O-R-R-I-L-L, was passed into law in July of 1862 and signed by President Abraham Lincoln. In September of that same year, he drafted the emancipation proclamation.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation on January the 1st, 1863, announcing that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious areas are, and henceforward shall be, free. Let’s continue from the National Archives. Initially, the Civil War between North and South was fought by the North to prevent the secession of the Southern states and preserve the Union. Even though sectional conflicts over slavery had been a major cause of the war, ending slavery was not a goal of the war. That changed September the 22nd, 1862, when President Lincoln issued his preliminary emancipation proclamation, which stated that enslaved people in those states or parts of states still in rebellion as of January the 1st of 1863 would be declared free. One hundred days later, with the rebellion unabated, the President issued the emancipation proclamation declaring that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious areas are, and henceforward shall be, free.
Now Lincoln’s step to change the goals of the war was a military measure and came just a few days after the Union’s victory in the Battle of Antietam. With this proclamation, he hoped to inspire all Black people and enslaved people in the Confederacy in particular to support the Union cause and to keep England and France from giving political recognition and military aid to the Confederacy. Because it was a military measure, however, the emancipation proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.
Although the emancipation proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it did fundamentally transform the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the proclamation announced the acceptance of Black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. And by the end of the war, almost 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom. From the first days of the Civil War, enslaved people had acted to secure their own liberty. The emancipation proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery’s final destruction, the emancipation proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom. Again, these words taken from the National Archives.
Here are some excerpts from the proclamation. "Whereas on the 22nd day of September in the year of our Lord 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States containing among other things the following to wit. That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state that people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. And the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no acts or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the executive will on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states and parts of states if any in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States and the fact that any state or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections where a majority of the qualified voters of such states shall have participated, shall in the absence of strong countervailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence that such state and people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.
Now therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion do on this first day of January in the year of our Lord 1863 and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of 100 days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States. The following to wit. Arkansas, Texas, and there are some parishes that are exempted here, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, with some exceptions including the 48 counties designated as West Virginia.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be free. And that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense, and I recommend to them that in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed services of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed."
The emancipation proclamation, as signed by the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
13:25 General Order 143
Todd Gleason: So the January 1 emancipation proclamation freed slaves in the Confederate states and in the same stroke urged them to join the Union army and navy. That eventually led to the War Department’s General Order 143, the creation of the U.S. Colored Troops.
The War Department General Order 143, Creation of the U.S. Colored Troops, 1863, as written up on the National Archives. The War Department issued General Order 143 on May the 22nd of 1863, creating the United States Colored Troops. And by the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 Black men, or about 10% of the Union Army, served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War. News that the Confederacy had attacked the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, which began the Civil War in earnest, set off a rush by free Black men to enlist in U.S. military units. They were turned away, however, because a 1792 federal law barred them from bearing arms for the U.S. Army.
In Boston, disappointed would-be volunteers met and passed a resolution requesting that the government modify its laws to permit their enlistment. President Lincoln’s administration wrestled with the idea of authorizing the recruitment of Black troops, but was concerned that such a move would prompt the border states to secede. When General John C. Fremont in Missouri and General David Hunter in South Carolina issued proclamations that emancipated enslaved people in their military regions and permitted them to enlist, their superiors sternly revoked their orders. By mid–1862, however, the government was pushed into reconsidering the ban because of the escalating number of formerly enslaved people coming over Union lines, referred to in the military as contrabands, the declining number of white volunteers, and pressing personnel needs of the Union Army.
As a result, on July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing enslaved people whose enslavers were in the Confederate Army. Two days later, slavery was abolished in the territories of the United States and on July 22, 1862, President Lincoln presented the preliminary draft of the emancipation proclamation to his cabinet. Now after the Union Army turned back Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North at Antietam, Maryland, and the emancipation proclamation was subsequently announced, Black recruitment was pursued in earnest. Volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts filled the first authorized Black regiments. Recruitment was slow until Black leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, encouraged Black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full citizenship. In fact, two of Douglass’s own sons contributed to the war effort.
Volunteers began to respond and in May 1863, the government established the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the burgeoning numbers of Black soldiers. Nearly 40,000 Black soldiers died over the course of the war, 30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in the artillery and infantry and performed all non-combat support functions that sustain an army as well. Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 Black commissioned officers. Black women who could not formally join the Army nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman, who scouted for the Second South Carolina Volunteers.
17:14 Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill
Todd Gleason: Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. At the end of the Civil War, this bill created a framework for Reconstruction and the readmittance of the Confederate states to the Union. In late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress began to consider the question of how the Union would be reunited if the North won the Civil War. In December, President Lincoln proposed a reconstruction program that would allow Confederate states to establish new state governments after 10% of their male population took loyalty oaths and the states recognized the permanent freedom of formerly enslaved people. Several Congressional Republicans thought Lincoln’s 10% plan was too lenient.
Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland proposed a more stringent plan in February of 1864. The Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill would also have abolished slavery, but it required that 50% of a state’s white males take a loyalty oath to the United States and swear they had never assisted the Confederacy to be readmitted to the Union. Only after taking this ironclad oath would they be able to participate in conventions to write new state constitutions. Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill, but President Lincoln chose not to sign it, killing the bill with a pocket veto. Lincoln continued to advocate for tolerance and speed in plans for the reconstruction of the Union in opposition to Congress. After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, however, Congress had the upper hand in shaping federal policy toward the defeated South and imposed the harsher Reconstruction requirements first advocated in the Wade-Davis Bill.
19:02 Surrender at Appomattox
Todd Gleason: General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox sets the table for the end of the Civil War. After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital on April the 2nd of 1865, officials in the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, fled. The dominoes began to fall. The surrender at Appomattox took place a week later on the 9th day of April. Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in Appomattox, Virginia, to discuss the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. The terms were generous. The men of Lee’s armies could return home in safety if they pledged to end the fighting and deliver their arms to the Union Army.
On April the 12th, 1865, in a quiet but emotional ceremony, the infantry of Lee’s army surrendered their arms, folded their battle flags, and received their parole papers which guaranteed them safe passage home. While it was the most significant surrender to take place during the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy’s most respected commander, surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The Grant-Lee agreement served not only as a signal that the South had lost the war, but also as a model for the rest of the surrenders that followed. It would not be until 16 months after Appomattox on August the 20th of 1866 that the President, Andrew Jackson, formally declared an end to the Civil War.
20:29 The 13th Amendment
Todd Gleason: The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. Passed by Congress on January the 31st, 1865, and ratified on December 6th, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It reads, in Section 1, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” And in Section 2, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
21:04 June 19, 1865, General Order #3
Todd Gleason: With all that we’ve listened to and heard from the National Archives so far as background, let’s turn our attention now to June the 19th. On the 19th day of June of 1865, the National Archives reports, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order Number 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Granger commanded the Headquarters District of Texas and his troops had arrived in Galveston the day before. This day has come to be known as Juneteenth, a combination of June and 19th. It is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
The official handwritten record of General Order Number 3 is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington D.C. It states, “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” The National Archives notes that while the order was critical to expanding freedom to enslaved people, the racist language used in the last sentences foreshadowed that the fight for equal rights would continue.
You’ve been listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. If you’d like to hear this program again, you can do so today on our website at willag.org. W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G. That’s willag.org. There you’ll find the Closing Market Report along with Commodity Week, the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast, information from the agricultural economists, crop scientists, and animal scientists from the University of Illinois and other important agricultural information. It’s all at willag.org W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.
The June 19 Closing Market Report provides a historical overview of the legislative and military milestones that culminated in the abolition of slavery in the United States. The broadcast begins by outlining the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, which established Land Grant Universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to expand equitable access to public education. It then details the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which strategically shifted the Civil War's primary objective toward ending slavery and authorized the enlistment of Black soldiers, a directive subsequently formalized by General Order 143 to create the U.S. Colored Troops. As the conflict concluded with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, the Wade-Davis Bill established stringent Reconstruction protocols for readmitting the defeated states to the Union. The timeline concludes with the formal constitutional abolition of slavery through the 13th Amendment and the enforcement of emancipation in Texas via General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, the historic event now nationally commemorated as Juneteenth.
00:43 The Morrill Acts & HBCUs
05:37 The Emancipation Proclamation
13:25 General Order 143
17:14 Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill
19:02 Surrender at Appomattox
20:29 The 13th Amendment
21:04 June 19, 1865, General Order #3
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. The markets are closed in observance of Juneteenth. Coming up, we’ll explore Juneteenth, the emancipation proclamation that Abraham Lincoln put forth to end slavery in the United States, and we’ll also discuss the War Department’s General Order 143 from 1863, and we’ll do that right here on this holiday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world.
announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
00:43 The Morrill Acts & HBCUs
Todd Gleason: To begin with, let me say that the script for today’s program was not written by me, but rather is taken from the National Archives. And I want to stitch together something a little different as it’s related to Juneteenth for you. We’re going to start in 1862 with the Morrill Act. Now it passed on July the 2nd of that year and it was the act that made it possible for states to establish public colleges funded by the development or sale of associated federal land grants. Uh, Land Grant Universities, for instance. Over 10 million acres were provided by these grants. The new Land Grant institutions, which emphasized agriculture and mechanic arts, opened opportunities to thousands of farmers and working people previously excluded from higher education.
It was sponsored by Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont. The act donating public lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts marked the first federal aid to higher education. But the government’s recognition of its obligation to provide schools for its future citizens dates from the beginning of the republic. In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the Continental Congress wrote, “knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” With this ordinance, Congress established a precedent for the support of public education that would grow to substantial commitments in later years.
Land was the key to the federal government’s early involvement. Now much of this land had been and would continue to be taken from Native American tribes. It was ceded through treaties, agreements, and seizure. In many cases, the federal government did not uphold its end of these treaties. We recognize that here at the University of Illinois. Now these public lands were surveyed into six-mile-square townships, and one-square-mile sections in each township was reserved for the support of public schools. By the way, if you travel very much, you might recognize that six-mile-square township or the one-mile-square section, which is 640 acres across the whole of the United States. It really is the basis by which roads were laid out, and that’s why things are straight. It’s also why many counties are 36 square miles.
Now the land itself was rarely used for school construction, but rather was sold off with proceeds used to fund the school program. The system invited misuse by opportunists, and substantial portions of the educational land grants never really benefited education. Nevertheless, land grant support became a substantial factor in providing education to most American children who could never hope to attend private or charity-supported schools. The Morrill Act committed the federal government to grant each state 30,000 acres of public land issued in the form of land scrip—certificates for each of its representatives and senators in Congress.
Although many states squandered the revenue from this endowment, which grew to an allocation of over 100 million acres, the Morrill land grants laid the foundation for a national system of state colleges and universities. In some cases, the land sales financed existing institutions. In others, new schools were chartered by the states. Major universities such as Nebraska, Washington State, Clemson, and Cornell were chartered as Land Grant Universities along with the University of Illinois. People of color were often excluded from these educational opportunities due to their race.
The second Morrill Act of 1890 was aimed at the former Confederate states and sought to rectify this discrimination. It required states to establish separate Land Grant institutions for Black students or demonstrate that admission was not restricted by race. The act granted money instead of land and resulted in the establishment of several historically Black universities and colleges, what we call HBCUs, including Alabama A&M, Prairie View A&M University, and Tuskegee University.
05:37 The Emancipation Proclamation
Todd Gleason: So the Morrill Act that created the Land Grant University system, spelled M-O-R-R-I-L-L, was passed into law in July of 1862 and signed by President Abraham Lincoln. In September of that same year, he drafted the emancipation proclamation.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation on January the 1st, 1863, announcing that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious areas are, and henceforward shall be, free. Let’s continue from the National Archives. Initially, the Civil War between North and South was fought by the North to prevent the secession of the Southern states and preserve the Union. Even though sectional conflicts over slavery had been a major cause of the war, ending slavery was not a goal of the war. That changed September the 22nd, 1862, when President Lincoln issued his preliminary emancipation proclamation, which stated that enslaved people in those states or parts of states still in rebellion as of January the 1st of 1863 would be declared free. One hundred days later, with the rebellion unabated, the President issued the emancipation proclamation declaring that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious areas are, and henceforward shall be, free.
Now Lincoln’s step to change the goals of the war was a military measure and came just a few days after the Union’s victory in the Battle of Antietam. With this proclamation, he hoped to inspire all Black people and enslaved people in the Confederacy in particular to support the Union cause and to keep England and France from giving political recognition and military aid to the Confederacy. Because it was a military measure, however, the emancipation proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.
Although the emancipation proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it did fundamentally transform the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the proclamation announced the acceptance of Black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. And by the end of the war, almost 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom. From the first days of the Civil War, enslaved people had acted to secure their own liberty. The emancipation proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery’s final destruction, the emancipation proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom. Again, these words taken from the National Archives.
Here are some excerpts from the proclamation. "Whereas on the 22nd day of September in the year of our Lord 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States containing among other things the following to wit. That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state that people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. And the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no acts or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the executive will on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states and parts of states if any in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States and the fact that any state or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections where a majority of the qualified voters of such states shall have participated, shall in the absence of strong countervailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence that such state and people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.
Now therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion do on this first day of January in the year of our Lord 1863 and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of 100 days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States. The following to wit. Arkansas, Texas, and there are some parishes that are exempted here, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, with some exceptions including the 48 counties designated as West Virginia.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be free. And that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense, and I recommend to them that in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed services of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed."
The emancipation proclamation, as signed by the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
13:25 General Order 143
Todd Gleason: So the January 1 emancipation proclamation freed slaves in the Confederate states and in the same stroke urged them to join the Union army and navy. That eventually led to the War Department’s General Order 143, the creation of the U.S. Colored Troops.
The War Department General Order 143, Creation of the U.S. Colored Troops, 1863, as written up on the National Archives. The War Department issued General Order 143 on May the 22nd of 1863, creating the United States Colored Troops. And by the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 Black men, or about 10% of the Union Army, served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War. News that the Confederacy had attacked the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, which began the Civil War in earnest, set off a rush by free Black men to enlist in U.S. military units. They were turned away, however, because a 1792 federal law barred them from bearing arms for the U.S. Army.
In Boston, disappointed would-be volunteers met and passed a resolution requesting that the government modify its laws to permit their enlistment. President Lincoln’s administration wrestled with the idea of authorizing the recruitment of Black troops, but was concerned that such a move would prompt the border states to secede. When General John C. Fremont in Missouri and General David Hunter in South Carolina issued proclamations that emancipated enslaved people in their military regions and permitted them to enlist, their superiors sternly revoked their orders. By mid–1862, however, the government was pushed into reconsidering the ban because of the escalating number of formerly enslaved people coming over Union lines, referred to in the military as contrabands, the declining number of white volunteers, and pressing personnel needs of the Union Army.
As a result, on July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing enslaved people whose enslavers were in the Confederate Army. Two days later, slavery was abolished in the territories of the United States and on July 22, 1862, President Lincoln presented the preliminary draft of the emancipation proclamation to his cabinet. Now after the Union Army turned back Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North at Antietam, Maryland, and the emancipation proclamation was subsequently announced, Black recruitment was pursued in earnest. Volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts filled the first authorized Black regiments. Recruitment was slow until Black leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, encouraged Black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full citizenship. In fact, two of Douglass’s own sons contributed to the war effort.
Volunteers began to respond and in May 1863, the government established the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the burgeoning numbers of Black soldiers. Nearly 40,000 Black soldiers died over the course of the war, 30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in the artillery and infantry and performed all non-combat support functions that sustain an army as well. Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 Black commissioned officers. Black women who could not formally join the Army nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman, who scouted for the Second South Carolina Volunteers.
17:14 Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill
Todd Gleason: Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. At the end of the Civil War, this bill created a framework for Reconstruction and the readmittance of the Confederate states to the Union. In late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress began to consider the question of how the Union would be reunited if the North won the Civil War. In December, President Lincoln proposed a reconstruction program that would allow Confederate states to establish new state governments after 10% of their male population took loyalty oaths and the states recognized the permanent freedom of formerly enslaved people. Several Congressional Republicans thought Lincoln’s 10% plan was too lenient.
Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland proposed a more stringent plan in February of 1864. The Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill would also have abolished slavery, but it required that 50% of a state’s white males take a loyalty oath to the United States and swear they had never assisted the Confederacy to be readmitted to the Union. Only after taking this ironclad oath would they be able to participate in conventions to write new state constitutions. Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill, but President Lincoln chose not to sign it, killing the bill with a pocket veto. Lincoln continued to advocate for tolerance and speed in plans for the reconstruction of the Union in opposition to Congress. After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, however, Congress had the upper hand in shaping federal policy toward the defeated South and imposed the harsher Reconstruction requirements first advocated in the Wade-Davis Bill.
19:02 Surrender at Appomattox
Todd Gleason: General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox sets the table for the end of the Civil War. After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital on April the 2nd of 1865, officials in the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, fled. The dominoes began to fall. The surrender at Appomattox took place a week later on the 9th day of April. Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in Appomattox, Virginia, to discuss the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. The terms were generous. The men of Lee’s armies could return home in safety if they pledged to end the fighting and deliver their arms to the Union Army.
On April the 12th, 1865, in a quiet but emotional ceremony, the infantry of Lee’s army surrendered their arms, folded their battle flags, and received their parole papers which guaranteed them safe passage home. While it was the most significant surrender to take place during the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy’s most respected commander, surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The Grant-Lee agreement served not only as a signal that the South had lost the war, but also as a model for the rest of the surrenders that followed. It would not be until 16 months after Appomattox on August the 20th of 1866 that the President, Andrew Jackson, formally declared an end to the Civil War.
20:29 The 13th Amendment
Todd Gleason: The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. Passed by Congress on January the 31st, 1865, and ratified on December 6th, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It reads, in Section 1, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” And in Section 2, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
21:04 June 19, 1865, General Order #3
Todd Gleason: With all that we’ve listened to and heard from the National Archives so far as background, let’s turn our attention now to June the 19th. On the 19th day of June of 1865, the National Archives reports, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order Number 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Granger commanded the Headquarters District of Texas and his troops had arrived in Galveston the day before. This day has come to be known as Juneteenth, a combination of June and 19th. It is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
The official handwritten record of General Order Number 3 is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington D.C. It states, “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” The National Archives notes that while the order was critical to expanding freedom to enslaved people, the racist language used in the last sentences foreshadowed that the fight for equal rights would continue.
You’ve been listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. If you’d like to hear this program again, you can do so today on our website at willag.org. W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G. That’s willag.org. There you’ll find the Closing Market Report along with Commodity Week, the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast, information from the agricultural economists, crop scientists, and animal scientists from the University of Illinois and other important agricultural information. It’s all at willag.org W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.