Today has been declared a national holiday—Juneteenth. But if we really want to celebrate a day that was a landmark in America’s journey toward a freer, less racist society, we should not be celebrating Juneteenth—we should be celebrating January 1, the day in 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, or December 6, the day the 13th Amendment was ratified. Or even February 3, the day the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870. And I believe the only reason the Democrats wanted this holiday is because it marks the date of a rare instance of a Democrat politician (Andrew Johnson, who was otherwise very racist) allowing an anti-slavery action. Indeed, the president in office when Juneteenth happened, Johnson, infamously wrote, “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.”

To be more clear. . .The Emancipation Proclamation was written and issued by Republican President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, and it freed all the slaves in Confederate territory and welcomed black soldiers into the US Army and Navy. Below is an excerpt from the Proclamation:

“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. . .

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

A magnificent document! In modern times, however, it is necessary to make a few clarifications. Firstly, Lincoln is often criticized for not freeing all slaves unconditionally. The answer is that he did not have the power to do so. While the words “slave” or “slavery” are never mentioned in the US Constitution, the slaves owned by those not in rebellion against the United States were legally considered property at the time, and Lincoln did not have the power as president to confiscate “property” from non-rebels. This is a not a mark of Lincoln’s racism, since we know that Lincoln later fought with extreme intensity for the passage of the official constitutional amendment which ended slavery once for all. Lincoln also called at least one former slave, Frederick Douglass, his “friend.”

Secondly, note that Lincoln specifically mentions that the Proclamation is in accord with the Constitution. Anti-slavery advocates such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George Washington who had been disappointed to achieve no slavery ban in the Constitution had taken comfort in the fact—as noted above, per Madison—that “slave” and “slavery” are not mentioned at all in the Constitution. There is also no mentioned barrier of any sort according to race (in fact, Washington’s revolutionary army was fully racially integrated and black men could vote in most states in the early days after the Constitution was passed).

Lincoln had long before argued for rights for black Americans on the basis of precedent, and he clearly believed his Emancipation Proclamation was only continuing the work of freedom which the Constitution had begun, in full accord with the ultimate intentions of the Constitution’s most influential writers, like Madison.

Therefore, the Emancipation Proclamation was a history-changing document, a landmark achievement. A white man born and partly raised in the South declared that all slaves in Confederate territory were free, and that black men had the right to serve their country in the military. This same man sent forth an army mostly composed of white men (though the Proclamation ensured it was a multi-racial army) who were willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice—their lives—to prove that black men ought to be free.

Nearly half a century later, one of the slaves who had been freed by the Proclamation, Booker T. Washington, was invited to give a speech on Lincoln to a group of Republicans. Booker T. Washington’s opening words capture beautifully what the Emancipation Proclamation meant to the former slaves of America: “You ask that which he found a piece of property and turned into a free American citizen to speak to you tonight on Abraham Lincoln.”

So why not celebrate January 1? Well, New Year’s Day is already a national holiday, so that makes it a little impractical; though we could well celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation on that same day. Or we could celebrate December 6, since that was the day in 1865 that the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified—the Amendment that was uniquely Lincoln’s, though he did not live to see it officially ratified. After all, December 6 is therefore the day when slavery was officially and finally ended, without exceptions, in the United States (with 100% Republican support and only 23% Democrat support). Let December 6 be the holiday celebrating the end of American slavery. So why celebrate Juneteenth? What exactly happened today that is so important?

The answer is, not much. June 19 saw no pivotal point in the history of race relations in America. It “marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.” I am very happy that the federal troops were ensuring that the last territory not continue to hold people in bondage.

But the reality is that this day was merely the end point of a work that was started by other men, years before. We celebrate July 4, 1776, not the day that the siege at Yorktown ended or the day Cornwallis’s army officially surrendered. In the same way, Constitution Day is September 17, the day the Constitution was signed by the Constitutional Convention delegates, not the day the last state accepted it. Why? Because the starting point—the first brave step, the first history-rocking move, is what qualifies for a national holiday. We celebrate the start, not the finish. Obviously everything that came after in both cases was important, very important, but that does not mean any of those other days automatically qualifies as a holiday.

So why is June 19 a holiday now? My answer is that the Democrats are trying to clean up their history. It is not that this day has never been celebrated before—of course it has. But it was made a federal holiday because the president under whom the federal troops were sent into Galveston was a Democrat, Andrew Johnson. Also, this holiday allows for Democrats to put in any significance they desire, because the major significance is not already obvious to everyone.

The president who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and pushed the 13th Amendment through Congress was a Republican, and the party that ultimately ensured the ratification of the 13th Amendment was the Republican party. Likewise, the 15th Amendment that gave black men the right to vote (as originally they had when the Constitution was ratified) was the special project of Republican President U.S. Grant, and it was passed by Republicans with not a single Democrat’s vote in favor. Democrats are erasing the true history of anti-slavery achievements to make themselves look good.

And Andrew Johnson, the Democrat president in office when “Juneteenth” happened? Johnson had owned slaves before the Civil War (only Democrats owned slaves by the time of the Civil War, by the way). He was a highly racist man, and he did not want justice for former slaves. Lincoln’s plan to give every former slave or his family “forty acres and a mule” was ruined deliberately by Johnson, who pardoned former Confederate Democrats so they could have their land back. “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men,” Johnson wrote.

Johnson “vetoed the Freedman’s Bureau Bill, designed to allocate land for the freedmen, provide schools for their children, and increase the Bureau’s legal power by setting up military courts in the southern states to protect the freedmen’s rights.” He furthermore “vetoed The Civil Rights Bill, which was designed to protect blacks against black codes and terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.” Unsurprising, considering the Ku Klux Klan was an entirely Democrat organization, founded by a former Confederate leader and war criminal, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Johnson did not allow troops to go into Texas because he wanted to hasten the end of slavery or increase the rights of black Americans. Johnson was a disgusting racist, as the majority of his fellow Democrats have always been. If there is one president whose actions we should celebrate, it is not Andrew Johnson. I am all for having a national holiday to celebrate an important event in American history furthering the end of racism—but let it celebrate Lincoln, the president who called a black man his friend, not the president who believed blacks incapable of engaging in anything but “barbarism.”

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This article was published at Pro Deo et Libertate and is reproduced with permission.