<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

In Our View: July 4th More Than A Date

Idea behind holiday sometimes gets overlooked, but it's well worth celebrating

The Columbian
Published:

Perhaps it is appropriate that this year’s Fourth of July celebration can be spread over a couple days. With the actual date falling on a Saturday, the work holiday for many of us lands on a Friday — today — and highlights the notion that the designation of the date is secondary in importance to the meaning behind it.

Fourth of July celebrations, you see, are largely an accident of history. The leaders who supported the Declaration of Independence, the document that enunciated the colonies’ break from the rule of Britain’s King George III, actually ratified that declaration on July 2, 1776. Founding Father John Adams, in fact, wrote a letter to his wife suggesting that, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.” Alas, when the declaration was made public two days later, the printer put the date of July 4 on the document, lending gravitas to that particular spot on the calendar. Such are the vagaries of history.

Yet while the date of the celebration might be an accident, its importance continues to ring as loud as bombs bursting in air. As scholar Leon Kass wrote in 2011: “History is replete with the births (and deaths) of nations. But the birth of the United States was unique because it was, and remains, a nation founded not on ties of blood, soil or ethnicity, but on ideas, held as self-evident truths: That all men are created equal; they are endowed with certain inalienable rights; and, therefore, the just powers of government, devised to safeguard those rights, must be derived from the consent of the governed.”

That, of course, echoes the words written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and there is reasonable debate these days over how effectively the nation lives up to those ideals. But the fact remains that, despite our political and social disagreements, the United States of America stands as a grand and glorious experiment worthy of celebration. It also is an experiment worthy of more attention than can be provided through parades, fireworks, barbecues and baseball games. As Kass also wrote, “It is a tribute to a polity dedicated to securing our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we can enjoy our freedoms while taking them for granted, giving little thought to what makes them possible.”

There is a disturbing truth behind those words. While Fourth of July celebrations once traditionally included oratories from dignitaries about the meaning of the occasion, today we prefer to skip the bloviating and head straight for the barbecue. And yet it remains essential and necessary to reflect upon the uniqueness of this nation, to reflect upon the fact that what links us does, indeed, go beyond superficial similarities. As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is credited with saying: “The essence of America — that which really unites us — is not ethnicity, or nationality, or religion, it is an idea. And what an idea it is — that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.”

That idea was made possible and has been defended for nearly 2½ centuries through uncommon foresight, commitment and bravery. In a world that has seen an endless string of despots and tyrants impose specious rule over the people of other nations, the United States has enjoyed the bloodless transfer of power and a commitment to individual freedom.

That is a remarkable achievement. And it is one that is worthy of reflection and celebration — today, tomorrow and every day.

Loading...