As a philosophy professor at a state university, I am surrounded by activist professors who use their classrooms to push DEI, LGBTQ, and decolonization agendas. They justify this by saying they pursue justice — one of the highest goals of education.

But America can remember chattel slavery as evil only because justice is not invented by activists, courts, or governments. Justice is grounded in the nature of man and the law of God.

Juneteenth reminds us that legal freedom came late to Texas. But the truth about human dignity was not late. It was there from creation.

Because of our founding ideals, Americans could fight to end slavery as an evil and a violation of natural law. And because many nations are governed by different ideas, slavery still persists in parts of the world today.

Juneteenth is not merely a celebration of delayed legal emancipation. It bears witness to a deeper truth: Chattel slavery was wrong before government finally acted against it. Moral law stands above human law. If America is going to remember Juneteenth truthfully, it must recover natural law and the Creator who grounds it.

Freedom did not create dignity

On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas finally heard that they were free. The announcement did not create their dignity. It did not make them human. It did not suddenly endow them with rights. It publicly recognized what had already been true by nature: They were human beings made by God, and no man had the right to own them.

The tyrannical system that allowed slavery began in kidnapping and was propagated by brutal violence. Its laws were no laws at all because they violated the natural moral law given by God to all humanity.

Americans agree today that slavery was wrong. But why?

It was not wrong merely because Congress later acted against it. It was not wrong merely because public opinion changed. It was not wrong merely because the Union won the war. It was not wrong because history moved forward.

Slavery was wrong because human beings are not property.

Human beings have a nature that gives them a moral status no government creates. They are rational, moral, embodied persons made for duties before God and neighbor. Because of what man is, certain things cannot rightly be done to him.

That is Christian natural law reasoning.

Rights come from the Creator

Natural law begins with the insight that the good for a being is grounded in the nature of that being. The good for a horse is grounded in the nature of a horse. The good for a tree is grounded in the nature of a tree. The good for a human being is grounded in human nature.

This is why chattel slavery is not merely inefficient, outdated, or offensive. It is contrary to what a human being is.

A slaveholder may have legal power, social approval, economic incentives, and the capacity for tyrannical violence. But he does not have moral authority, because no human law can erase the nature of man.

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The Declaration of Independence does not say rights come from government. It says men are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator” with “unalienable Rights.”

If rights come from government, government can redefine, restrict, or remove them. If rights come from social consensus, the majority can vote them away. If rights come from personal identity, rights become expressions of will and power.

But if rights come from the Creator, government is under judgment. The state does not create justice. It is accountable to justice.

This is why the Declaration was morally stronger than the compromise that tolerated slavery. The American founding contained a principle that condemned America’s own practice. Juneteenth reminds us that the principle had to be applied against the national sin.

The counterfeit of justice

Social justice activists want the emotional power of moral judgment without the metaphysical foundation that makes moral judgment possible.

They want to say slavery was evil. They want to say racism is evil. They want to say oppression is evil. They want to say injustice is evil.

But many of these same activists reject the Creator, reject fixed human nature, reject moral law, and reduce justice to power, identity, or social construction. The same people who say slavery is wrong also tell us that human beings can redefine themselves as animals, objects, or anything else they imagine. They appeal to the Marxist dialectic of oppressor and oppressed while denying the moral order that makes oppression intelligible.

Their view is incoherent.

If justice is socially constructed, then one society constructs slavery and another constructs abolition. If morality is only the preference of the powerful, abolition is not more just than slavery. It is merely the victory of a different power. If human nature is whatever we decide it is, human dignity has no stable foundation.

Juneteenth cannot be explained by moral relativism. It requires moral realism.

DEI as secularized religion

The activist account of justice is a Marxist counterfeit of Christianity. It keeps some outward forms but denies the inner meaning. DEI programs often speak in the language of justice, oppression, liberation, and equality. But they detach those words from the Creator and natural law. Justice becomes group equity. Sin becomes systemic power. Repentance becomes political re-education. Redemption becomes ideological compliance.

That framework cannot explain why slavery was evil in the first place. It can describe power relations, but it cannot give a final account of why oppressors are morally guilty.

The Christian natural law tradition can.

A right observance of Juneteenth should include gratitude for emancipation, repentance for national sin, honor for those who suffered, and moral clarity about the nature of justice. But it should not become a ritual of permanent grievance or ideological manipulation.

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America is accountable to God

The lesson is not that America is uniquely evil. The lesson is that America, like every nation, is accountable to a law higher than itself. When America violated that law, it was guilty. When America appealed to that law, it had the moral resources to correct itself.

Americans must repent of national sin and turn to Christ for redemption.

That is why Juneteenth should not be surrendered to radicals who despise the moral order that makes the holiday meaningful.

Juneteenth reminds us that legal freedom came late to Texas. But the truth about human dignity was not late. It was there from creation. The offer of redemption did not come late either. It is extended to all sinners.

The enslaved were human before emancipation. They had rights before government recognized them.

Slavery was evil before it was abolished. Justice was real before America obeyed it.

That is the lesson America needs now. We have national sins for which we must repent, and we must be clear that Christ is our redeemer.

Juneteenth only makes sense if natural law is real. And natural law only makes sense if a Creator’s justice stands above every court, legislature, plantation, university, and activist movement.

Marxist advocates can scream, but they cannot give a coherent account of justice.