Had the Union soundly and quickly defeated the Confederacy, it's very likely that slavery would have remained. Instead the war dragged on, and the Union was forced to employ blacks in its ranks. The end result—total emancipation—was more a matter of military necessity than moral progress...
The United States did not save black people; black people saved the United States of America. With that task complete, our "ally" proceeded to repay its debt to its black citizens by pretending they did not exist.
Ta-Nehisi Coates has written one of the most powerful essays on American history, and the black experience within it, that I have ever read. I hesitated about including the words "and the black experience within it" because, at its core, it runs against the spirit of the truths that Coates writes.
