Juneteenth, now an annual American holiday, commemorates the 19th of June, 1865 when Texas, the last state of the Southern Confederacy, finally released their slaves.
Most Americans I’m betting don’t know that. You know what else I’m betting they don’t know which should be right up their with the Declaration of Independence, D-Day and the Gettysburg Address?
The Gag Rule.
In 1836 the House of Representatives passed a resolution forbidding any motion or petition to be raised in regards to slavery on the House floor. John Quincy Adams, the 6th U.S. President and the only one to go back into the House to serve, ruled it unconstitutional.
His colleagues, many of them southern slave holders, shouted him down, but Mr. Adams held his ground shouting back…
“Am I gagged, or am I not?” Coining its infamous name.
He brought slavery up every chance he got in every way possible, making many enemies, receiving death threats along with his family; yet never stopped bellowing that slavery was an evil act against God and humanity.
Finally in 1844, it was voted out, but it took 8 years for a man with righteous determination for it to happen.
Here is where irony comes in.
On January 6, 2021 when those opponents of patriotism stormed the United States Capitol, it was in Statuary Hall, the old House of Representatives.
It was where John Quincy Adams in 1829 at the age of 80, after serving for 17 years, collapsed at his desk of a stroke, carried to a state room never regaining consciousness before dying two days later.
There’s a plaque in the floor right where these heathens stood, honoring where he fell.
For me, what they did was equivalent to desecrating a Cathedral because that’s what the Capitol truly is.
And what saddens me the most is, most people don’t realize it, having no sense nor knowledge of the history that went on within those hallowed walls.
When the then House Representative for the state of Wyoming, Elizabeth Lynne Chaney stood up protesting what took place, though knowing it would hurt her political career, I called her the John Quincy Adams of our time.
Like her esteemed predecessor, as an elected official knew it was her duty to do what was right.
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I’d like to think that John Quincy was standing beside her cheering her on.
The Gag Rule should be common knowledge, taught in every school, turning Juneteenth into a much more poignant holiday adding to its importance, and not simply a day off for many.
SB