The Richmond Planet of 11 October 1890 contains a long article with the
opinions of 17 Richmond men who were asked what was the most proper day
for celebrating the end of slavery. The article fills nearly an entire
column. The reasons people assigned for each of the dates reveals how
personal the end of slavery was to them and how, at that date, the end
of slavery was tied to specific places and events of importance to those
individual people:

Some advocated commemorating 1 January 1864, the day when Emancipation
Proclamation went into effect ("I have to close up that day anyhow, and
the colored people have holiday anyway and won't lose any time from
business")

Some advocated commemorating 23 September 1863, the day when the
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued ("on account of the
weather") 

Some advocated commemorating 3 April 1865, the day that the United
States Army entered Richmond ("the work was done when Richmond fell")
("that was the day I shook hands with the Yankees") ("that was virtually
the ending of the war")

Some advocated commemorating 9 April 1865, the day that the United
States Army accepted the surrender of the Confederate Army ("when the
Proclamation went into effect we were not free") ("That's when we
received the blessing") ("That was when the work was done") ("the day of
the downfall of the Confederacy was the day of the uprising of the
Negro") ("the date of the surrender of Lee would be the proper day")
("when Lee surrendered to Grant the work was accomplished")

Joseph T. Wilson, of Richmond, gave the longest opinion: "In the first
place I think that Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation didn't amount to any thing
from a legal standpoint. It freed nobody. Understand me that it had a
very marked moral effect, but the 13th Amendment really gave freedom to
the slave. I believe that we should celebrate the passage of that
Amendment, if we desire to celebrate the act by which we became free.
However if they want to celebrate Lincoln's Proclamation, the day should
be the the first of January."

It is curious that none of the commentators at that time (or the editor
of the newspaper, John Mitchell Jr, who posed the question) took a wider
or longer view and mentioned commemorating 19 June 1865, the date on
which the United States Army took final command in Texas and under
Lincoln's Proclamation freed the last slaves then held in the country.

Nor did any one think to mention commemorating 7 April 1864, the
effective date of the Virginia Constitution of 1864 which abolished
slavery (How many of us remember that?); of course, that Constitution
was effective only in the areas under the control of the United States
Army at that time, but in May 1865 that Constitution became the
governing law of all of Virginia (less West Virginia, of course) and
remained so until 1870.

The Library of Virginia's current exhibition, "Myth and Memory:
Understanding 400 Years of Virginia History" explores these  and like
themes of contested memory and how Virginians have employed
commemorative events to reinterpret their history. One of my favorite
parts, and one that I have been delighted to see causes people to pause
and read and reflect, treats memories of the Civil War. Side by side we
have displayes of items from Confederate reunions and from Loudoun
County Emancipation Day celebrations. So: What did the Civil War mean?
To whom?

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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