Today, and every April 9 to come, should be a national holiday. A holiday to commemorate, celebrate, and sanctify the story of the most revolutionary expansion of democracy and freedom in the history of the United States. A holiday to celebrate the defeat of the Confederacy.

One hundred sixty years ago today, Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, effectively ending the Civil War and cementing a lasting victory not just for the Union army, but for the millions of people who had participated in the destruction of slavery. It took nothing less than 250 years of resistance by enslaved people, a century-long, multiracial abolitionist movement, a new anti-slavery political party with a broad coalition, and the full force of the US military to achieve. But in the end, a people’s victory that had seemed far out of reach for generations was finally achieved: slavery, and the oligarchs who upheld it, were defeated.

Now more than ever, this story must be studied, taught, celebrated, and, most especially, emulated — especially in the South where the Lost Cause historical narrative of the war was so effectively advanced by the fallen Confederates and their sympathizers. And what better way to honor such vital history and teach it to the next generation than with a special holiday on the calendar each year?