Abolishing evil - part 1

In April of 1863 the then American president, Abraham Lincoln, put his signature on a very decisive document (on the abolition of slavery), thus taking a firm step towards officially abolishing this defaming institution from American society. The end of the American Civil War was still two years away, and the realization of the inherent promise in this document, to free all Negro slaves, was decades away from being achieved.

Still both individual states and individual people now possessed a strong weapon in their struggle to end the terrible injustice. With reference to a law passed in the highest legislative body of the entire Union, anyone could technically demand his or her freedom. And state judiciaries could now effectively render just verdicts in disputes involving the buying and selling of humans: it was now considered illegal to regard a person as an item to be sold or disposed of at will, and, consequently, it was considered illegal to force a human being, acquired for money, to work for you for no pay at all.

Suddenly the former item had been restored to the status of personhood. The black man or woman could not any longer e.g. lawfully be included in the inheritance distributed from a father to his children.

The institution of slavery had suffered a shattering blow from which it would never recover. But still many people would spend their entire lifetimes within the confines of the cotton fields, dying without having seen their dream of freedom come true. The mere enactment of a law was, sadly, in itself a woefully inadequate measure, as society would time and time again fail to live up to its own standards.