Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America, and happy 154th birthday to Calvin Coolidge!
We should also observe the 200th anniversary of the passing of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In so doing, I’ll repost a bit from a few years back:
Imagine opening a newspaper in early July of 1826 to find that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died not merely on the same day, but on the fiftieth anniversary of the Founding itself. I’ll bet that as much as any event in our history ever had or would, the occasion of their deaths heightened the American sense of being watched over by what Jefferson called “Divine Providence.”
–Me, “Fourth of July, 2007.”
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The US doesn’t play until Monday, so today I cheered for Morocco and France because they were the first two nations to recognize our independence. It worked, they won. Tonight: steaks, neighborhood fireworks, and the Cubbies are on national TV at Wrigley.
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Speaking of the birthday boy, I think this year I’ll reuse one of my favorite commentaries on the Declaration. This excerpt comes from President Coolidge’s speech “The Inspiration of the Declaration,” delivered exactly 100 years ago… tomorrow. The Fourth was on a Sunday back in 1926, which was when people used to care about that sort of thing (as evidenced by a big chunk of the speech), so he gave his address the next day.
The whole thing’s worth reading, but today I re-post that part that resonates most with me:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
As I’ve said before, if today you want to find fault or hypocrisy in the people who wrote and ratified the Declaration, and the people who worked and fought to achieve Independence, fine– but make sure to blame the humans, not the ideals.
The ideals were good. The ideals remain good, and they ever shall be good. We poor souls need to keep striving to live up to them.