[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 85 (Friday, June 18, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H4510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH

  (Mr. DeLAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, 139 years ago tomorrow, the sin of human 
bondage was ended in the United States. It has been said that the Civil 
War was the last battle of the American Revolution, and so it was. More 
than 600,000 Americans died in that conflict to save the Union, 
preserve the democratic ideals of the Founding, and make those ideals a 
reality for 4 million slaves.
  If it is that the Civil War was indeed the last battle of the 
Revolution, then so it is that Gordon Granger fired its last shot. On 
his arrival in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, Granger, a major 
general in the United States Army, issued General Order No. 3 to the 
people of Texas informing them of the end of the war and the 
emancipation of the slaves. ``This involves an absolute equality of 
rights and rights of property between former slaves and masters, and 
the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between 
employer and free laborer,'' he said, and in an instant the world 
changed.
  The United States, the first Nation in history ``conceived in liberty 
and founded on the proposition that all men are created equal,'' was, 
for the first time, seeing to it that liberty and equality were 
extended to all its citizens.
  Juneteeth, then, reminds us of the first principles of our Nation and 
of our Nation's special commission in the affairs of men. While Texas 
may be the only State in the Union that celebrates the anniversary of 
Juneteenth, the entire country, and indeed all of the civilized world, 
celebrates its legacy.
  Man is born to be free. That is not an idea, it is the truth, 
absolute and without exception. But like all truths, freedom is almost 
never easy. It took wars to extricate ourselves from Britain, to free 
the slaves, to rid the world of fascism, and 40 years on the brink of 
nuclear holocaust to defeat Soviet communism.
  So it takes war now to free the civilized world from the threat of 
international terror. The price of freedom is internal vigilance, and 
even a cursory survey of American history shows that price is a 
bargain.

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