<P> As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual . It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night . Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom...Some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper--the Emancipation Proclamation, I think . After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased . My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks . She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see . </P> <P> The war ended on June 22, 1865 and following that surrender, the Emancipation Proclamation was enforced throughout remaining regions of the South that had not yet freed the slaves . Slavery continued for a couple of months in some locations . Federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19, to enforce the emancipation . That day of gaining freedom is now celebrated as Juneteenth in several states . </P> <P> The thirteenth amendment, abolishing slavery except as punishment for a crime, was passed by the Senate in April 1864, and by the House of Representatives in January 1865 . The amendment did not take effect until it was ratified by three fourths of the states, which occurred on December 6, 1865, when Georgia ratified it . On that date, all remaining slaves became officially free . </P> <P> Legally, the last 40,000 - 45,000 slaves were freed in the last two slave states of Kentucky and Delaware by the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on December 18, 1865 . Slaves still held in Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Washington, D.C., and twelve parishes of Louisiana also became legally free on this date . American historian R.R. Palmer opined that the abolition of slavery in the United States without compensation to the former slave owners was an "annihilation of individual property rights without parallel...in the history of the Western world". Economic historian Robert E. Wright argues that it would have been much cheaper, with minimal deaths, if the federal government had purchased and freed all the slaves, rather than fighting the Civil War . Another economic historian, Roger Ransom, writes about how Gerald Gunderson compared compensated emancipation to the cost of the war and "notes that the two are roughly the same order of magnitude--2.5 to 3.7 billion dollars" Ransom also writes that compensated emancipation would have tripled federal outlays if paid over the period of 25 years and was a program that had no political support within the United States during the 1860s . </P>

When was the last time slavery was legal