This Fourth of July

On this Fourth of July I intend to set off fireworks and drink beer. Like so many of my countrymen, that will be my outward celebration. Within my heart however, I intend to have a moment or more of solemnity.

This is a momentous day in the history of our country. The day during which we dissolved bonds with our mother country and struck out on our own, bonds which have been so hard to dissolve we remain in a “special relationship” with that colonial power today. So many have waxed poetic about it through our history; I will not try to top them. I will however, comment on how the American experiment at peoples governance was a revolution, not just against a colonial power but in ideals set forth by our Declaration thereof that are so aspirational we sometimes struggle to comprehend.

It is with this in mind that I will take pause. Remembering that the American Revolution should never end, should never stop seeking out those goals Thomas Jefferson laid out. We are closer now than we have ever been to living the truth that all men are created equal, and women too, for that matter. 

I implore you to listen to the words of Fredrick Douglass, as read by James Earl Jones, on his feelings regarding the Fourth of July. Take a moment to think for whom the American Dream has not yet been realized. Douglass' speech is from 1852, but it can still resonate today. We are not the same country as we were then, we have notably different laws, but have our hearts fully been changed? Perhaps not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tTkHJWxfP0 Douglass expressed his confusion at being asked to speak noting: “These blessing in which you this day rejoice are … shared by you not by me.” Equality was not shared by all our citizens even though our foundational documents promise that all shall be treated equal before the law.

My reflection on his powerful statements leads me to his contemporary, and sometimes friend, Susan B. Anthony. She, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed on the centennial of the Declaration, their own, for women. Writing:

"It was the boast of the founders of the republic, that the rights for which they contended, were the rights of human nature. If these rights are ignored in the case of one half the people, the nation is surely preparing for its own downfall. Governments try themselves. The recognition of a governing and a governed class is incompatible with the first principles of freedom. Woman has not been a heedless spectator of the events of this century, nor a dull listener to the grand arguments for the equal rights of humanity. From the earliest history of our country, woman has shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom, and has stood firmly by his side in its defence. Together, they have made this country what it is. Woman's wealth, thought and labor have cemented the stones of every monument man has reared to liberty."

This declaration, a century after Jefferson’s, notes our national failure to embody all of the principles of justice and equality. Before the law, at the very least, we have elevated all to a single class of citizenship. We still exist in a world where rampant inequality reigns. We are not the mobile society which we claim to want, we are not without our original prejudices. We can do better. I will set off fireworks to celebrate how far we have come, I will bum people out with this discussion to remind them of how far we need to go.

The War for Revolution is long past, the ideals set forth to fight it will forever need defending, though. The founding fathers concluded by pledging to one another to support their Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen States with their Lives, Fortunes and sacred Honor. We should do the same.