Juneteenth in Delaware

Delaware, the first state to have ratified the Constitution, let 36 years pass by before it approved the 13^th Amendment which prohibited slavery. The nation’s celebration of its newest federal holiday, Juneteenth, is an opportunity to reflect on the end of slavery in Delaware.

Slavery had existed in Delaware since colonial times. That officially ended, of course, with the ratification of the 13^th amendment in December 1865; the amendment made slavery illegal throughout the United States.

Although the Unionist-dominated state legislature voted overwhelmingly to reject secession on January 3, 1861, a small number of slave owners had enough political clout to prevent abolishing slavery prior to the Civil War. As one of four slave-holding states that didn’t secede from the Union, Delaware wasn’t affected by the Emancipation Proclamation. And because it didn’t secede, unlike Texas, where the origin of Juneteenth lies, and the other 10 states of the Confederacy, it didn’t need to agree to the 13^th amendment to be readmitted to the Union.

Republican Gov. William Cannon had sent the 13^th Amendment to the General Assembly on Feb. 7, 1865, two months before Robert E. Lee surrendered, with his recommendation for approval. The next day, the Democrat-controlled legislature declared their “unqualified disapproval” and rejected it on the grounds that it was “contrary to the principles upon which the government was framed.”

After the Civil War had ended and Union troops arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865 to announce freedom for enslaved people in that state, Delaware took no action to make slavery illegal. It was not until Dec. 6, 1865, when the 13^th Amendment was declared ratified in the United States — without Delaware’s agreement — were the state’s slaves officially freed.

Guided by Gove Saulsbury, the Democrat Speaker of the Senate who became governor upon Cannon’s death in office, the General Assembly also rejected the 14^th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” when it came up for a vote on Jan. 16, 1867. It was rejected with the same language that rejected the 13^th Amendment. Without Delaware’s agreement, the 14^th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868.

Similarly, in March 1869, the General Assembly rejected the 15^th Amendment which gave Black men the right to vote. It became part of the United States Constitution on Feb. 3, 1870.

Saulsbury and the General Assembly had taken every possible step to deny the new rights given to African-Americans. They even recommended that African-Americans convicted of certain crimes be sold back into slavery.

It wasn’t until early 1901 that the General Assembly, prodded by Governor John Hunn, a Republican, symbolically passed a joint resolution ratifying the three amendments. Hunn’s father, also John Hunn, was an abolitionist and superintendent of the Underground Railroad south of Wilmington, the southernmost stationmaster in the United States. He had lost the family’s New Castle County farm in 1848 because of fines assessed against him by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney for helping seven runaway slaves and their freedman father.