To some of us, it is the hometown parade led by the old veterans of bygone wars, a picnic in the park, or the gathering together to see the fireworks. It is young people walking together ahead of the parents, or the flags that fill the main streets of small towns across the countryside, but what is the 4th of July, really?
For many, it is a day of ease, a time to relax and enjoy a holiday with outdoor cookouts, baseball games, family, friends, and food. Some find a momentary rush from the banners and garlands that decorate front porches across small towns. For others, alone in the cities and towns, it is just another day filled with quiet desperation and fear, but what is the 4th of July, really?
Why should we celebrate this day, above others? What is it that makes this day different? Is it just the parades, the picnics, the free time, the concerts in the park, the fireworks, or is there more? I think each of us must find our own answer but there is so much more that I am not sure I can do justice to the day.
History teaches the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia agreed on July 2nd, 1776 to declare the colonies independent from Great Britain. Setting into motion events that would ultimately lead this nation to represent the best a nation can be, and alas at times the worst a nation can be. A small group of individuals, empowered by the peoples of their home colonies came together to forge a new future for a land that was still raw, untamed, and largely unknown.
The colonies had been the site of surrogate conflict when the French and the English engaged in the war from 1756 to 1763. During that war, the French and Indian War, the French and their native allies in an effort to dominate and control the inevitable westward expansion of the continent attacked and harassed the English settlers. The war started when George Washington, as a Virginia Major, demanded the French withdraw from the Ohio valley. The consequences of the war were the stationing of a large force of British troops in the Colonies. This led to ultimately putting a burden on the Crown on how to pay for that large garrison force and the King decided to levy taxes on the colonies to pay for that protection. [Does this sound at all familiar to what is going on today?]
As the King, and the Parliament exerted its right to levy these taxes, and other burdens like the taking of property to garrison its troops, the merchants of the North and the landowners of the South found common ground to come together and consider changes to the status quo. In the early 1770’s political writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and even Thomas Jefferson[i] began to question the right of Parliament to control the colonies. They began to assert the colony's allegiance was to the Crown, and not the civil government that Parliament represented.
This came to a head after Parliament passed the Coercive or Intolerable Acts[ii] to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. As a result of the punitive nature of these various acts, the colonists organized the 1st Continental Congress to formulate a protest and request relief from the Crown. Those petitions were rejected and led the King to declare the colonies in a state of rebellion.[iii]
In a nutshell that is how we reached the point where we decided; leave the safety of the Crown, and strike out as 13 independent colonies. But, just as we see in our representative government today, writing the preamble would not be an easy venture. Men like John Adams, from Massachusetts, wanted to strike back in words sharp and biting that there be no mistake we were severing all ties, but there were colonies where the desire for independence was not nearly as strong and they rejected his first draft of the preamble. So it came to pass in June 1776, congress chose a committee of five representatives to draft what would become one of the finest summaries of our problems with England. Those five were; John Adams from Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson, Virginia, Robert R. Livingston, New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. While Thomas Jefferson is widely credited with this, there is some question as to how much was his words and thoughts and how much was just his crafting of others thoughts.
So what did they say?
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.[iv]
More importantly, what does it mean?
In the simple sense, if we take the words as they are laid out we are, for the first time as a nation-state, saying there is a natural law where all men are equal before the eyes of God. The Royalty of Europe does not hold a special position and the people of the 13 colonies have chosen, by their own authority to separate from an unjust government. This is an important lesson and one we should not forget. We, the people, have the power to govern ourselves; if we give up that power we will be the poorer for it. Each day we should consider how we govern our self, and what authority we are willing to vest in others. Clearly, most of our founding fathers were willing to take the chance we as a nation could make sound and rational choices about our lives and livelihoods, without a distant and remote government telling them what to do.
So why is this day so important? It marks the first time where we codify the power to govern is granted by those who are governed and not by some inherent right of birth or ordained right given by the gods, or a God. It doesn’t just limit, as the Magna Carta did in 1215, but states clearly the right to govern is a privilege granted by the governed. That is a very big deal and one of the reasons service in the military was a simple choice for my life.
So what is the 4th of July? It is a day to determine the course of your life, what you will do in service of others, and what you can do for our nation.
2 comments:
Such a good summary both for those for whom it is a reminder or a review and for those encountering this information for the first time.
With the emphasis in the news of late on variations and errors of the who, what and when of America's short but storied past, I have found myself playing with some of the available history quizzes on-line. While I pass above average, I have forgotten much of what I ever learned and that says nothing of the gaps that have never been covered, so anyone blundering in public
is certainly safe from the likes of me.
Articles like yours are really of great value. I hope your readership grows. Thank you.
Hello John!
Reading this ( again) this morning, I find I am deeply touched by several phrases in the Declaration as we experience less and less transparency going forward; "...a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them... " AND "...To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world..."
I will pm you.
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