"I am not a fan of slavery".

Many want to blame 246 years (1619-1865) of American slavery on the four-year existence
of the Confederacy, and that the institution only existed in the American South. In 1641
Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, a slave owner, helped write the first law legalizing
slavery in North America. The 1790 US Census documented more slaves in New York City than
in the state of Georgia. Slavery in New Jersey ended in 1846, just 15 years before the war.
The Corwin Amendment to the US Constitution, passed by the US Senate and House
of Representatives in March 1861, would have made slavery permanently legal if the
seceding states had rejoined the Union. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was a measure to
weaken the Confederate war effort, only freeing slaves held in Confederate territory that escaped
on their own or came under Federal control; exempting the Union slave states of Delaware,
Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, and areas of Tennessee and Louisiana under Union occupation.
Delaware's slaves were not freed until ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865,
eight months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.