"Happy Juneteenth! I hope you all had a lovely week celebrating the nation's newest federal holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery throughout the Confederacy.
"How could you not? The media was chock-a-block with commentators telling us what a fantastic, transformative event for our nation this was. But the media ignored the best part of all!
"What Juneteenth commemorates is not technically the abolition of slavery, but the notification thereof to a particular group of slaves.
"Although President Lincoln officially ended slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, it wasn't until two years later, on June 19, 1865, that the slaves of Galveston, Texas, got the news, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into town and issued a series of proclamations announcing that the hideous institution had been abolished and, henceforth, slaves would be considered hired labor.
"This takes Juneteenth to a whole new level. Think of all the new federal holidays we could create using Juneteenth as our template! (Anyone who's dealt with the federal government knows that those workers well deserve another paid day off.) We just need horsemen to ride around the country, correcting the errors of those who falsely believe something bad about America.". . .
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