In the popular imagination, slavery in the United States ended with Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation may have been limitedfreeing only slaves within Confederate states who were able to make their way to Union linesbut it is nonetheless generally seen as the key moment, with Lincolns leadership setting into motion a train of inevitable events that culminated in the passage of an outright ban the Thirteenth Amendment. The real story, however, is much more complicatedand dramaticthan that. With Who Freed the Slaves?, distinguished historian Leonard L. Richards tells the little-known story of the battle over the Thirteenth Amendment, and of James Ashley, the unsung Ohio congressman who proposed the amendment and steered it to passage.
