Walter Williams Explains the Emancipation Proclamation

Some unpopular history.

Walter E. Williams: A Minority View: "President Obama was sworn into office placing his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible. That is the last Bible I would use to be sworn into office. You say, 'Why? Didn't Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation free your ancestors?' It all depends where they were living. Let's examine the document's text to see why. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which reads, 'That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free …' The key phrase is 'in rebellion against the United States' because slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion."