December 18, 1865: Slavery is institutionalized in the United States

As early as the early 16th century, shortly after Columbus discovered the "New World", at the beginning of the development of the Americas, African black slaves were sold to the American continent to work, becoming the earliest black slaves in the Americas. In the 17th and 18th centuries, with the tide of immigration on the American continent, the North American colonial period needed a large number of labor, and black slaves also increased rapidly.

From 1686 to 1786, about 250,000 black Africans were trafficked to the British colonies of North America. The sale and enslavement of black African slaves constituted an important part of the original accumulation of capital in North America, thus contributing to the rapid development of the North American colonies, and at the same time enabling the development of black slavery here. On the eve of the American Revolution, there were about 600,000 blacks in the North American colonies, one-fifth of the total population at the time, of whom about 550,000 were black slaves.

In 1776, the North American War of Independence broke out, and the idea of human rights gradually became popular in the United States. Although progressives led by Franklin and Jefferson proposed the abolition of slavery when discussing and studying the Declaration of Independence during the Continental Congress, in order to take care of the interests of "numerous" slave owners in the South, the 13 colonies could jointly participate in the independent founding of the country. The American Declaration of Independence said nothing about slavery.

Despite the blood and sacrifice of many black slaves during the Revolutionary War, the conditions and rights of slaves in the post-independence United States did not improve.

Slavery is incompatible with a nation founded on freedom, equality, and human rights, and even more incompatible with a free industrial economy. The northern states, which had an industrial economy, abolished slavery. Congress passed a ban on the slave trade in 1807, but the slave trade continued unabated, with Virginia exporting nearly 300,000 slaves in 30 years. At the beginning of the 19th century, the cotton growing industry in the south of the United States rose, especially the "westward movement" appeared more plantations and slave states, and black slaves in the southern states where agriculture and animal husbandry are the main. By 1860, the number of black slaves in the United States had reached 4 million, and they worked all day without any human rights, living worse than livestock, and in extremely miserable conditions.

Slavery has become a "cancer" in the United States, some people with insight have become "abolitionists", "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "White Slave" and other novels exposing slavery should be published; The abolitionist organization the Underground Railroad secretly helped slaves escape to freedom. They successfully organized and escorted 75,000 slaves to escape to the North.

But blacks were not welcome in the North either. In 1822, with the support of the government, some black people were settled in West Africa, and the Republic of Liberia was established in 1847.

But that was just a drop in the bucket. Nothing changed about slavery in the United States. Slavery hindered the development of free economy to a certain extent, and the contradiction between abolitionists and slavery supporters became increasingly acute. In 1833, the "American Anti-Slavery Society" was founded, and by 1850, the association had more than 150,000 members and more than 200 chapters. In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which "let the people decide whether to hold slaves", which was resolutely opposed by abolitionists and led to the "Kansas Civil War", also known as "Blood dyeing Kansas". In 1859, the "John Brown Uprising" brought the abolitionist movement to its climax.

The slavery issue caused the polarization of the two parties in the United States, and eventually formed the confrontation between the "democratic" and "republican" in the current American politics. In the 1860 presidential election, Republican Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) won with the slogan "A divided family is doomed" and the idea of limiting the expansion of slavery.

Lincoln's election as the 16th President of the United States made the Southern slaveholder group panic, hastily declared the independence of seven (a total of 15) slave-holding states in the South, formed the "Southern League", and launched the civil War on 3 and 4, 1861, known as the "Civil War".

When the Civil War was in full swing, in May 1862, Lincoln implemented revolutionary democratic measures and promulgated the Homestead Act. On September 22, he issued the Declaration of Emancipation of Black Slaves, announcing that black slaves would be freed, reorganizing the army and arming blacks, which greatly encouraged the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses, especially the blacks. The initiative on the battlefield had shifted to the Union Army.

In particular, the Emancipation Proclamation fundamentally disintegrated the fighting power of the Southern rebel states, and in 1865, General Grant led the army to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. On April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered. On May 10, the Civil War, which had lasted five years, ended with the victory of the Union led by Lincoln.

In January 1865, the United States Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that slavery or forced servitude shall not exist in the territory or jurisdiction of the United States. On December 18, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution came into effect. Slavery was officially abolished in the United States.

The victory of the American Civil War ended, preserved the union, abolished slavery, and cleared the way for the development of capitalism in the United States. President Lincoln deserves a lot of credit. On the evening of April 14, while Lincoln was working on freeing slaves, granting clemence to rebel slave owners in the South, and rebuilding the South, the constitutional amendment had not yet taken effect, President Lincoln was shot dead at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by actor John Wilkes Bush, who had been paid by Southern slave owners.

Although slavery in the United States was abolished in the institution, although the black slaves in the United States played a pivotal role in the victory of the Northern Army in the Civil War, because the racial problem in the United States is deep-rooted, after Lincoln's death, whether it is his successor President Andrew Johnson, or President Grant and President Hayes. In the reconstruction of the South, there was a policy of exclusion of blacks. After reconstruction, the South still had strong racist forces and serious racial segregation, and neither the political status nor the economic life of southern blacks had been fundamentally changed. Racial segregation and discrimination in the United States, more than 100 years later, are still a major disease in American society.