Month: June 2023
A Peculiar Day to Celebrate the End of the Peculiar Institution?
Since Delaware and Kentucky were the last states that still allowed slavery to exist until the 13th Amendment was passed in December of 1865, it is interesting to me how Juneteenth came into being. How did June 19th become the day to celebrate that second independence to complement the first one, to become the fulfillment of the contract described by our earlier Declaration of Independence where, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?” June 19th, 1865 only freed the slaves in Texas when Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived to take control of the vanquished confederate member State. Texas was not the last State to end slavery.
Because Delaware and Kentucky were both Union States, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply. The Emancipation Proclamation exempted Union States from having to free their slaves. Slavery did not officially end for the United States of America until December 6, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified. And, perhaps, now a source of embarrassment for these Union States, Delaware didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment until February 12, 1901 and Kentucky didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment until March 18, 1976. I’m sure this fact was not lost on the President, being from Delaware, when he signed the law that made Juneteenth a national holiday. But, is Juneteenth really the right day to celebrate the end of slavery?
In general terms, it probably doesn’t really matter what date is picked as long as we celebrate. Slavery is unconscionable. It should have never been introduced to America in the first place. Slavery had or was steadily being abandoned by most Christian nations within five hundred years of the collapse of the western Roman Empire in 476. And it should have remained that way.
While I, personally, may prefer a date more representative of when all the slaves were freed in the United States (December 6, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified), it really shouldn’t matter to me nor should it be up to me. Juneteenth is a tradition we should honor because it means so much to so many who had been given June 19, 1865 as the day to celebrate the end of slavery and that new found independence for a people who had previously been denied participation in our great American experiment. The respect for people to govern themselves that was so eloquently specified in that first Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 had lacked a certain amount of credibility when it excluded a whole faction of people who were not free. But now that contradiction and that blight against our country’s soul had been removed.
And so, I will certainly be celebrating that fully inclusive freedom and independence. And there is one overriding reason why we all should and that is because, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Happy Juneteenth!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_in_the_American_Civil_War
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/13th-amendment-united-states-constitution/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-13/ratification-of-the-thirteenth-amendment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/3003
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Romehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom
The Polarity Resistance 