Juneteenth, the Offspring of the Fourth of July

 In 1852, amid July 4th celebrations of America's independence, the great American intellectual and Abolitionist Frederick Douglass called on America to live up to the great principles of its Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and abolish slavery within its borders. In June of 1865, America finally did just that.

On June 19th, we celebrate Juneteenth as a National Holiday—and justly so. This is the day that, in June 1865, Union soldiers reached the last enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, with the news that slavery had been abolished and that they were now free.

The abolition of slavery, an evil institution that American inherited at its Founding, is a major cause for celebration and among America’s finest hours. The day the last slaves were liberated certainly rises to the level of deserving of a national holiday. But it must be remembered that the principles of the American Founding made possible the end of slavery. If not for the Fourth of July, we’d have no Juneteenth. Professor Jason D. Hill, author of We Have Overcome, aptly calls the abolition of slavery America’s Second Founding.  

By all means, celebrate Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day. But put it on a par with Constitution Day, which celebrates the document that Frederick Douglass called “a glorious liberty document.” Like The U.S. Constitution, Juneteenth owes its existence to the Declaration of Independence and the philosophy behind it. 

It’s a damn shame that it took almost a Century for the promises of the Declaration of Independence to reach all Americans of African descent. But it did, finally erasing America’s most glaring birth defect. 

Happy Juneteenth.

Related Reading:

Juneteenth and 'America's Original Sin': What The Seattle Times Gets Right—and Terribly Wrong

If Not for the Fourth of July, We’d Have No Juneteenth.

The ‘1619 Project’ Fraud Begins its Poisonous Infiltration into American Politics

A New Textbook of Americanism — edited by Jonathan Hoenig

QUORA: ‘Why do law schools teach constitutional law but not the Declaration of Independence as an animating principle?’

The 'New American Socialists' Dilemma: The Declaration is as much anti-Socialist as anti-Slavery

Biden Cancels America

On Juneteenth, Let’s Celebrate the Atlases of Abolition by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard 

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Fundamental Principle of America

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THE SLAVES IF EMANCIPATED? By Frederick Douglass' Monthly, January, 1862

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? by Frederick Douglass | July 5, 1852