Here is another example of Republicans being the real civil rights leaders.

Juneteenth, when the Republicans ended slavery
June 19, 2006


Today, Americans celebrate “Juneteenth” – when in 1865 slavery finally ended throughout the entire United States. Sadly, few people know that Juneteenth was a high water mark for African- Americans. Soon after that great day, the Democratic Party defeated the Reconstruction policies of the Republican Party, postponing the civil rights movement until the 1950s.

An important fact which most history books ignore is that Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 running mate was a Democrat, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. And so after Lincoln’s assassination, it was a Democrat who would be President of the United States for the first four years after the Civil War. That first President Johnson did all in his power to prevent African- Americans from experiencing Lincoln’s “new birth of freedom.”

It was in Texas where slavery finally ended. On June 19, 1865, U.S. troops commanded by General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston and brought some important news that the Democrats running the state had refused to tell their slaves, that they had been legally freed more than two years before by the Emancipation Proclamation. Granger's famous General Order Number 3 read: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”

General Granger then traveled around Texas to inform the African-Americans, still being held as slaves by their Democrat masters, that they were in fact free. Granger was a zealous advocate for full civil rights for African-Americans. Too zealous, it turned out, for President Andrew Johnson. On August 6, 1865, just seven weeks after his arrival, President Johnson relieved Granger from command in Texas. That same month, Johnson removed all African-Americans serving in the U.S. Army occupation forces.

Any officer in the U.S. Army who exerted himself too much in defense of African-Americans was out of a job. For this reason, Johnson dismissed the conscientious Phil Sheridan, who had sent General Granger to Galveston, from command in Texas and Louisiana. Sheridan’s replacement was General Winfield Hancock, who then allowed white supremacist thugs a free hand. So impressed were former rebels with the performance of Hancock that he would receive the support of the Solid South when he became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 1880.

President Andrew Johnson campaigned against ratification of the 14th Amendment and vetoed the Republicans’ Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was he who quashed Republican attempts to provide “forty acres and a mule” to emancipated African-Americans. Andrew Johnson vetoed a bill to extend voting rights to African-Americans in the District of Columbia, saying he wanted a completely “white man’s government.” And in Johnson’s racist mind, the civil rights hero Frederick Douglass was “a damned scoundrel.”

Southern Democrats (the former Confederate rebels and President Johnson) exercised almost complete control over the post-Civil War South for two years after Appomattox. The Democrat state governments set up by the Andrew Johnson administration quickly reduced African-Americans to near slavery with the infamous “black codes.” Not until March 1867, when they attained two-thirds majorities in Congress, were Republicans able to override Johnson’s vetoes and enact their Reconstruction policies, beginning with the Reconstruction Act of 1867.

Unfortunately, the two-year delay before the onset of Republican Reconstruction had enabled the Democrats to strengthen their grip on power and on African-Americans in the South. As soon as they were back in power in the southern states, Democrats closed down most of the public school system that Republican administrations had established for African-Americans as well as poor whites. Democrat terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia denied African-Americans their right to vote. In the South, where dozens of African-Americans had held elective office while Republicans were in power at the state level, the restoration of Democrat rule meant the exclusion of African-Americans from politics for nearly a century.


Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country, showing office- holders, candidates, and activists how they would benefit tremendously from knowing and appreciating our Party's heritage of civil rights achievement. His book, Back to Basics for the Republican Party, is the acclaimed history of the GOP from the civil rights perspective.
Contact Mr. Zak to invite him to speak at your Republican event.


Michael Zak’s article is adapted from his book Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of the GOP from the civil rights perspective. His e-mail address is Grand_Old_Partisan@hotmail.com.
Contact Michael Zak (Grand_Old_Partisan@hotmail.com) to invite him to speak at Republican events throughout the country.


Contact Mr. Zak to invite him to speak at your Republican event. Click here for more information
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