On Juneteenth

by Annette Gordon-Reed

The Framers could reach a compromise over slavery, and allow for the formation of the American Union because Providence, in the form of progress, would solve the problem. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.” Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. . . . That is the basis upon which Texas and other members of the Confederacy had formulated their society.