This Day in Republican History 6/19/06

June 19, 1865

On “Juneteenth,” U.S. troops land in Galveston, TX to enforce ban on slavery that had been declared more than two years before by the Emancipation Proclamation While researching Juneteenth, I found almost no mention of the troops under Union general Gordon Granger, who were sent to Galveston to ENFORCE the ban on slavery. History revisionists would have you believe that General Granger was a glorified messenger boy. But he was the Union general put in charge of Texas. When he read the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, he was also reading the riot act, and he rode ahead of enough troops to put down any resistance. The Emancipation Proclamation had gone into effect two-and-a -half years earlier and the Civil War had been over for two months. It is absolutely unbelievable that Texas slaveholders -- or Texas slaves -- would have been totally ignorant of this. I mean, Texas isn't the name of another planet. They had telegraphs and newspapers and word of mouth. They didn't need a Union general to inform them of world events. A messenger who was sent to Texas to inform people of emancipation was killed. It is thought the plantation owners wanted their slaves for one more harvest. Astoundingly, the Democrats seem to have hijacked this day as their own. What follows is a statement that was posted on a Juneteenth Web site a few years ago.

Washington, D.C. - Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued the following statement in commemoration of Juneteenth. "This Saturday, Democrats across America will celebrate the anniversary of Juneteenth, the country's longest-running observance of the abolition of slavery." Juneteenth is a celebration of liberty, as we remember that day in 1865 when the news of emancipation finally reached the slaves of Galveston, Texas - two and a half years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. On that day, slavery was finally eradicated from our country's shores and a new sense of hope had been achieved for the entire nation." 139 years after that historic day, the Democratic Party remains committed to fighting for equality in our schools, our workplaces, and in our neighborhoods to ensure an equal opportunity for all Americans."

Scuse me?? The Democratic Party remains committed to fighting for equality? When the did this happen? Wasn't it the Democratic Party that fought on the side of slavery? Wasn't it the Democratic Party that fought against EVERY attempt to institute "equality in our schools, our workplaces and our neighborhoods," right through the 1964 Civil Rights Act? At what point in our history did the Democratic party -- the party of slavery, the party of segregation, the party of the Ku Klux Klan -- become this nation's champion of liberty? Talk about an Extreme Makeover! Deliberately altering history should be a crime punishable by prison. By the way, you won't find a statement from the head of the RNC on that site. Apparently, the Republican party had nothing to do with freeing the slaves.