Miraculously, the system worked for declaring Juneteenth a national holiday — all the way from the Capitol signing to the White House ceremony in a day.

Never have I seen such joy burst into song at a press conference. The Congressional Black Caucus joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. It felt as if centuries of slavery floated away down the river.

A new day, if only for a passing moment.

"This is our national hymn," Majority Whip James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, told the press. The anthem "Lift Every Voice" was sung by the caucus to mark June 19, when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally found out they were free in 1865.

Pelosi noted President Abraham Lincoln already lay dead, the final casualty of the Civil War he won. Clyburn told us that enslaved people of color labored on the majestic building.

A poetic moment of truth in the People's House.

This week, we're back to business as usual, a Capitol so evenly divided it can barely stand. The 50-50 Senate was facing and bracing for a big voting rights bill. The House approved "For the People" legislation to reform elections.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock, a new Georgia Democratic senator, is a man of color who preaches at the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, once Martin Luther King Jr.'s pulpit.

This juncture is a "defining moment" for the soul of our democracy, Warnock stated. He added, "Race is part of the equation."

"Let's have the conversation, right here, right now," Warnock declared on the floor before the filibuster vote.

There in lies the strange Senate rub. A 60-vote threshold is required to open debate. Then the bill could pass with a simple majority.

Sour Republican senators say that Democrats will "federalize elections," like that's a bad thing.

With states wildly uneven, the federal government should run federal elections.

2022 stakes are high as Republican statehouses, like Texas, are moving swiftly toward tightening rules for voting. Suppression by any other name, a brazen attempt to chill the Black vote, which came out strong for President Joe Biden.

On the Senate floor, For the People died by the 60-vote filibuster rule. Lincoln's echo does not move the stony Republicans. Like political physics, a House action draws an equal and negative reaction in the other chamber.

The thing is, it takes only 40 votes to defeat most Senate bills, so a straight party-line vote fails. In other words, the minority can win easily.

But there was another factor at play: Biden put his political weight behind the major act.

"Send it to my desk," Biden urged.

Biden met Monday with wavering Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginian Democrat at the heart of the drama.

Stage whispers followed Manchin's wake wherever he went for weeks. He played Hamlet in the halls. But in the end, the Southern centrist joined his Democratic caucus.

Biden won over Manchin, if only because he inherited a "crisis presidency" like Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Biden stepped into office in the midst of a pandemic and after an armed attack on the Capitol.

Biden hopes to cure what ails our frail democracy. Man to Manchin, the president pressed the lone Senate standout suggesting he held the party's faith — or even his presidency — in his hands.

All 50 Democrats had to stand together for a moral victory — and they did. The final tally was 50-50.

Knowing they could count zero votes from across the aisle to reach 60 and overcome the bill's blockade, Democrats showed team spirit, just like Republicans.

That unity builds their morale. But it also shows Americans the dusty arcane Senate rules cry out for reform — "for the people."

While I was asking the Warnock questions in the June heat, an Alabama Republican senator — a friendly ex-football coach — called out a question about the pastor's Sunday sermon.

"When (Tommy) Tuberville asks about my sermon, we're definitely moving in the right direction," Warnock smiled as he descended the Senate steps.

If Democrats prevail somehow someday, that would be a real miracle.

Jamie Stiehm may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To read her weekly column and find out more about Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Photo credit: leahopebonzer at Pixabay