"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. —- Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution"
"... WHEREAS, an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help African American and white citizens confront the ghosts of their collective pasts together; and
WHEREAS, the story of the enslavement of Africans and their descendants, the human carnage, and the dehumanizing atrocities committed during slavery should not be purged from Virginia's history or discounted; moreover, the faith, perseverance, hope, and endless triumphs of African Americans and their significant contributions to the development of this Commonwealth and the nation should be embraced, celebrated, and retold for generations to come; and
WHEREAS, the perpetual pain, distrust, and bitterness of many African Americans could be assuaged and the principles espoused by the Founding Fathers would be affirmed, and great strides toward unifying all Virginians and inspiring the nation to acquiesce might be accomplished, if on the eve of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in the New World, the Commonwealth acknowledged and atoned for its pivotal role in the slavery of Africans; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly hereby acknowledge with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the settlement at Jamestown, the General Assembly call upon the people of the Commonwealth to express acknowledgment and thanksgiving for the contributions of Native Americans and African Americans to the Commonwealth and this nation, and to the propagation of the ideals of liberty, justice, and democracy; and, be it
RESOLVED FINALLY, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates shall post this resolution on the General Assembly's website." -- Virginia House of Delegates Joint Resolution No. 728
"...Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations as slavery depends on a system of social stratification. Slavery typically also requires a shortage of labor and a surplus of land to be viable...." -- Wikipedia
"At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these casualties exceed the nation's loss in all its other wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam. The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates: Battle deaths: 110,070; Disease, etc.: 250,152; Total 360,222. The Confederate strength, known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses: Battle deaths: 94,000; Disease, etc.: 164,000; Total 258,000...." -- Civil War Home [emphasis added]
"The Civil War between the northern and southern sections of the United States, which began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on the 12th of April 1861, and came to an end, in the last days of April 1865, with the surrender of the Confederates, was in its scope one of the greatest struggles known to history. Its operations were spread over thousands of miles, vast numbers of men were employed, and both sides fought with an even more relentless determination than is usual when 'armed nations' meet in battle. The duration of the war was due to the nature of the country and the enormous distances to be traversed, not to any want of energy, for the armies were in deadly earnest and their battles and combats (of which two thousand four hundred can be named) sterner than those of almost any war in modern history...." -- Son of the South
Of terrible encounters during our "Unpleasantness Between The States," the highest death tolls occurred at: Peninsula Campaign Southeast Virginia -- 36,500 (1862); Shiloh Tennessee -- 24,000 (1862); Antietam Maryland -- 26,000 (1862); Fredericksburg Virginia -- 18,000 (1862); Gettysburg Pennsylvania -- 51,000 (1863); Chicamauga Georgia -- 34,000 (1863); Chancellorsville Battle Virginia -- 30,000 (1863); Seige of Vicksburg Mississippi -- 19,000 (1863); Overland Campaign Virginia -- 87,000-92,000 (1864); Appomattox Campaign Virginia -- 16,500 (1865); and Seige of Petersburg Virginia -- 70,000 (1864-1865).
From a total population of 694,000 in 1790 of Africans brought here involuntarily, the numbers of Africans in the United States by 1860, just 170 years later, was slightly under four million, or nearly a six-fold increase from importation and propagation. At that time states with the highest numbers of Africans (counted officially as three-fifths of a person in the original North/South Constitutional compromise abrogated by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1/22/1862 and the Thirteenth Amendment of 1/1865) as part of their population were, in descending order [geographic size rank and concentration weight (order-rank)]:
Signers of our Declaration of Independence were from the colonies of NH(3), MA(4), RI(2), CN(4), NY(4), NJ(5), PA(9), DE(3), MD(4), VA(7), NC(3), SC(4) and GA(3).
