Mississippi Officially Bans Slavery

Well... that took some time.

Mississippi ratified the 13th amendment on Feb. 7, meaning that in 2013, it officially ended slavery. The reason? The movie "Lincoln." A specialist at the University of Mississippi saw the flick and started digging into the state's ratification of the 13th amendment.

Georgia gave the amendment the three-fourths' vote it needed in December 1865, according to the Clarion-Ledger. Mississippi, Delaware Kentucky and New Jersey rejected the amendment. Kentucky ratified the amendment on March 18, 1976 after rejecting it on Feb. 24, 1865.

The specialist, Ken Sullivan, found out that Mississippi lawmakers voted to ratify the amendment in 1995, but never sent the necessary paperwork to the Office of the Federal Register, according to the Clarion-Ledger report published Sunday.

Sullivan contacted the Mississippi Secretary of States' office in late January, and the Senate resolution was sent to the federal government.

Mississippi has never had the reputation of being the country's most progressive states, so this isn't... surprising...

Epic thing that happened today: Emancipation Proclamation

You've no doubt heard about the movie "Lincoln" which in an era of movies where explosions and CGI are king, it's political banter is a refreshing introspect into one of our nations greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln. The movie focuses on the passing of the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery.

(Buy this book on Lincoln)

Before that though, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 which said that all slaves in the Confederate States of America were now free. Obviously the rebellious states still kept their slaves if they could (until the end of the war) and didn't free the 800,000 slaves in the North (that would happen with the 13th Amendment), but it did make the Civil War more about the abolition of slavery than state rights. It kept England from coming into the war on the side of the Confederacy.

(Get Ken Burns' The Civil War Here.)

Perhaps the move was more symbolic, and to ensure that when the country got back together it wouldn't be like the country before the war. Slavery was going to be a thing of the past, and the Civil War was going to accomplish that.

Here's a great article from The Beast that breaks down the signing by Lincoln and just what it means in American history. 

If Walmart were around in the 1860s, there wouldn't have been a civil war

... because people would have been too busy buying $5 DVDs. Walmart is apparently trying to rectify the problem by proposing a Supercenter near the site where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first battled.

Historians are obviously in an uproar.

However, one thing i find interesting is that there's a strip mall already near the site anyways, and and the Walmart would be a whole mile from the actual battle site. And this quote kind of sweetens the pot a little.

"In these economic times, the fact that Wal-Mart wants to come into the county is an economic plus," said R. Mark Johnson, a tire shop owner and chairman of the county's board of supervisors. "This is hardly pristine wilderness we're talking about."

Yeah, in these economic times it's really ballsy to see Walmart do something like this. Is it me or do the people that survey the sites for prospective Walmarts pick the most controversial places possible. I mean you don't hear Kmart or Target setting up shop on an Indian Burial Ground or a wildlife preserve but Walmart seems perfectly happy to do so.

How hard would it be to move the store like five miles down the road just to escape the media poop storm that they'll be getting?

But hey, at least they're building instead of stuffing their money under a mattress.