14 Common Misconceptions about American History

7. Lincoln Freed the Slaves

According to most people’s knowledge of American history, during the Civil War Abraham Lincoln ratified the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that freed all those American citizens who lived as slaves. Yeah, that’s not true. Lincoln did sign the Emancipation Proclamation, but it didn’t apply to slaves in the North or those slaves living in border states. The latter condition was intended to lure the states in the geographic middle of the conflict onto the side of the Union. In fact, the only slaves actually freed by the Proclamation were those living in the South, a.k.a. the only slaves who didn’t actually benefit from the ruling.