Editor’s note: the Vermont Legislature this year made Juneteenth a legal state holiday, to be celebrated on June 19th. Until now it has been a ‘commemorative’ state holiday. Juneteenth is traditionally celebrated on the third Saturday of June, in memory of the day in 1865 on which the last black American slaves were officially set free. This commentary by retired U.S. Army Col. Daniel Pipes of Fairfield is republished from last year.
by Dan Pipes
I wrote this last year. Unfortunately, our nation is even more polarized, after another year of missed opportunities to come together as Americans. Perhaps it is worth publishing again.
As we celebrate our newest national holiday, I pause to reflect on the context of the times, both then and now. We can all rejoice on Juneteenth.
It is difficult today to understand just how devastating the Civil War was for our nation. But before I go down that path, we should also celebrate the Constitution, which inevitably set the stage for the Civil War.
The words that begin the second paragraph of our Declaration of Independence are clear. “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal…” Our nation was founded with this promise of equality. The Federalist Papers and countless other documents and records show how this issue simmered until it finally burst into flames in 1861.
Back to the Civil War. Juneteenth rightly celebrates the end of the agonizing and horrible institution of slavery. We should use this day to remember not only those freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, but those who fought and died to make it happen. The slaves were unable to free themselves.
Juneteenth was not realized by some happy accident of time and circumstance.
Given the population of the United States in 1860, and using the low side of military casualty estimates for the war, the 650,000 Civil War casualties (not including any civilian deaths) would be 6.4 million deaths in today’s America. Think of that. The same number of deaths that Jews suffered in the horrific concentration camps in WWII. The impact on our nation was felt for generations.
Since it remains fashionable to divide us by race and gender and other categories, it is worth noting that the vast majority of those who fought and died were white males. Think of that. Over 150 years ago, a huge number of white men (and boys as young as 12) said no to slavery, and fought and died for their beliefs.
To bring this home, Vermonters disproportionally served in the Civil War. Over 5,000 Vermonters died for the cause, and 2,200 were taken prisoner. If the war was fought today with the same casualty rate, Vermont would suffer over 10,000 casualties. It is mind boggling in its devastation. Imagine all of Montpelier killed, and then add another 2,500 casualties. Our state is rightly filled with monuments to these brave men.
I’m all for celebrating the end of slavery in America. Let’s not just celebrate what happened, but how, and who made it so. Let’s also remember those thousands of families who never saw their sons and fathers and uncles again.
This holiday is both proof that America was not and is not perfect, and that our national trajectory moves towards a more perfect union. Sometimes it’s a stutter step, sometimes we fall, but that particular arc of our history moves towards those natural rights that are brilliantly set forth in our Constitution. We can all celebrate those freed, those who broke the chains, and the ongoing promise of freedom for all citizens. What a wonderfully inclusive holiday.
Happy Juneteenth!
The author is a retired U.S. Army colonel living in Fairfield.
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Categories: History
Nice essay Col. Pipes. My compliments.
Excellent. Thank you for taking the time…
Yes and Amen !
Very eloquently put sir! It was a pleasure to have served with you and I thank you for continuing that service with articles like this.
how absolutely meaningful and heartwarming to read your article Dan Pipes; Thanks and Blessings!
Great points. History takes care of itself. Reparations paid.
Every decent American citizen should celebrate the end of the awful historical stain in this Country that was slavery. However, the damage done by our current unhealthy obsession with race is ongoing, and we need to get beyond it. The left in general and democrat party specifically are using race animosity as a cornerstone of their agenda.
Slogans painted on the road do nothing to promote unity. Great points made in this article…thanks.
Very well said. I have shared the same sentiments with the EWSD and state equity office. Both entities dismissed the sacrifices made by society as a whole to end slavery. Both of these entities told me that I was responsible for and needed to apologize for slavery. I then informed them that I was a third generation American of Sicilian decent. My ancestors didn’t live in America when slavery existed. Both entities stated it didn’t matter and that I was white and therefore responsible for slavery in America. I then I formed these entities that Sicilians were captured in the Mediterranean by Muslims and sold into slavery. Their response was exactly the same that I was responsible for slavery in America. The social critical justice movement rejects enlightened rationalism, obviously.
The only ones’ “responsible for slavery in America” was the Democrat Party at that time. And post-Civil War, the Democrat Party was responsible for both Jim Crow and the KKK. Why is the Democrat Party allowed to still exist?
Trying to explain factual evidence to brainwashed grifters is an exercise in futility. The glaring problem with DEI and it’s sanitized, redacted, censored history lessons, is they are mute on modern-day human trafficking and enslavement. They don’t care what is going on Haiti or what went on there post-earthquake. They don’t care that women and children are being kidnapped, drugged, assaulted, dragged across the border to be sold to the highest bidders. They don’t care to hear about ranchers at the Southern border finding dead bodies strewn across their properties.
No, we must make a holiday to celebrate and commemorate old fabricated yarn history. All to make themselves feel good while people of all colors and creeds are being tortured and slaughtered every day.
I challenge every DEI compensated shill to stop being complicit and ignorant to the real atrocities going on right now. Stop pandering, stop lying, and stop trying to right wrongs you don’t know the facts about at all. Address the heinous, dispicible crimes going on right now. The irony is they are enslaved by a system that requires indebted servitude from birth to death. Soon, they will figure it out, as many of them are each passing day, and that will be the hardest punch in the gut and stinging slap across the face. The blood money is in their hands.
“Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?” –Thomas Sowell
The United States was a British colony until our independence, we inherited the slavery and immediately states and people were working to unravel the mess they were handed. Penn. was a state where slaves could obtain their freedom from the beginning of our nation, led by the Quakers. Yes, it took time to undo this, people were working on this from the very founding of our nation.
History is being lied about within our country, for political gain.
We should be making sure our schools are well run, in Vermont and the big cities, we are being robbed blind. All schools should be safe and drug free. This is not the case.
This is the great deception that I can’t overlook:
“Juneteenth rightly celebrates the end of the agonizing and horrible institution of slavery.”
‘Juneteenth’ was established to forever bash America over the head for its “systemic racism” and to annually remind all of us of this great lie.
‘Juneteenth’ as “celebrat[ing] the end of… slavery” is just the deceptive pose.
I agree Tom. If we were really celebrating the end of slavery, society would appreciate the loss of lives and sacrifices made as a nation. Not only did we end slavery in America. America committed its navy to patrol the oceans to stop slaver ships.
Mr. Pipes…..ummm, No.
It took a “real” Republican to free the slaves.
The problem is that Vermonters have been accused of “not doing enough “, of enjoying the benefits of “white privilege” of being “systemically racist” for too long now. It is beyond insulting to hear. It is also morally wrong to claim these things.
You mention 5,000 deaths and 2,200 were taken prisoner. All were men between the age of 12 (as you say) and likely 40 years old. Vermont had a total 94,000 males between the age of 10 and 40 years old in 1860 (US census bureau). So Vermont lost a little more than 5% of its eligible male population to death. You don’t mention permanent disability as a result of war but that would put the number even higher.
Also, i understand that about 25% of the men that volunteered did not return home. Using that ratio, Vermont sent 20% of its eligible male population (10 to 40 years old) to fight in that war.
That is extreme sacrifice and it is beyond wrong to call this state racist.
Juneteenth didn’t exist in most of the country until 2020, when cities were burning and our “leaders” encouraged rioting and vilifying of law enforcement. We’re still dealing with the aftereffects of that year. What have Vermonters ever received for their sacrifice? More and more accusations of “racism”. It’s never enough, until the people stand up.
That is about when the United Nations and World Bank declared that there were not only a global pandemic but also a pandemic of systemic racism and hate speech. The COVID funds dispersed to member nations like the US were designated to fight all three pandemics. Hense, the employment of all those school equity staff at about that time.