America’s Birthday: The True Meaning of July 4 (Part 1)

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AEI

The Declaration of Independence is the birth announcement of the American Republic. Do we understand its full meaning? Does our modern Republic live up to its promise?

Amy Kass and Leon Kass

July 1, 2013

 

 

Declaration of Independence

 

THOMAS JEFFERSON

 

On July 4, 1776, two days after it adopted the Lee Resolution that declared the united colonies independence from Great Britain, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson (17431826), which explains that decision by declar[ing] the causes which impel them to the separation. These causes are laid out in the bill of particular charges against the king, the listing of which constitutes the bulk of the Declaration. But in addition, the opening paragraphs of the Declaration provide the first and most authoritative statement of what we might call the American creed. For in separating from Great Britain, the united colonies ground their claim to political independence in a teaching about individual human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to which rightful freedoms all human beings are said to be equally entitled.

 

In articulating the four self-evident truths (natural equality, inalienable individual rights, government founded on the consent of the governed, and the peoples right of revolution) and compiling the list of the kings abuses, Jefferson claims to have done nothing more than place before mankind the common sense of the subject. It was, he explained years later, intended to be an expression of the American mind. Even so, this birth announcement of the American Republic reveals that it is the first nation anywhere to be founded not on ties of blood, soil, or lineage but on a set of philosophical principles for which the document and the nation are justly celebrated.

 

Read the full Declaration.

 

Questions for the Reader

 

Careful study of the text will attend to both the universal principles and the particular grievances, as well as to the question of the relation between them. What, according to the Declaration, makes the American colonists a distinct people, entitled to a separate and equal station among the peoples of the world? What is meant by the Laws of Nature and Natures God, and how are these related to our peoplehood? What is a right, and where do individual rights come from? What is a self-evident truth, and in what self-evidently true sense can we say that all men are created equal? How does the Declaration understand the relation between the individual and the collective? Between our rights and our responsibilities (or duties)? Do we Americans today still hold these truths (or any truths) to be self-evident?

 

Review carefully the list of grievances. Which ones strike you as most egregious? To what do they all add up? Why does the document emphasize the deeds of the king, downplaying the complicit role of Parliament? What is the relation between these grievances and the philosophical principles stated earlier? Are you persuaded that revolution was in fact justified? Imagining yourself in Philadelphia in July 1776, would you have pledged your life, fortune, and sacred honor to support this declaration? Would you and in the name of what? make such a pledge today to support the American republic, should comparable support be needed?

 

Amy Kass and Leon Kass

 

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[Valin]

Americas Birthday: The True Meaning of July 4 (Part 2)

In speeches delivered nearly 10 years apart, two men from very different backgrounds one a president and one a former slave reflect on the meaning of July 4th and the Declaration for themselves and their nation.

Amy Kass and Leon Kass

July 2, 2013

 

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July

 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

 

As virtually every American today understands, without the need for any argument, the existence of slavery was a stain on the American republic from its founding. It also embarrassed our alleged devotion to the principles of human equality and unalienable rights, principles that had been presented in our birth announcement as truths by which we Americans define ourselves in declaring that we hold them to be self-evident. No American in our history has exposed our hypocrisy more powerfully than did Frederick Douglass (circa 181895), a one-time slave who became a great orator, statesman, and abolitionist. Douglass made the case best in his famous Fourth of July oration (excerpted), delivered on July 5, 1852 before the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York. Yet as remarkable as his indictment is his vigorous defense of the Constitution and of the American experiment.

 

Read an excerpt of the speech.

 

Questions for the Reader

 

The speech is divided into several parts, which look at the past, the present, and (briefly) the future. How does Douglass regard the American Revolution, and those responsible for it? What is his attitude toward our Fourth of July celebrations? What is his answer to the question posed in the title of his oration? Review the various parts of his critique of his American present. Which arguments and indictments do you find most compelling and most damning? For what offenses does he condemn American religion and American churches? Why, despite all that he condemns, does he vigorously defend the Constitution of the United States? Do you agree with his defense? Finally, why is he hopeful about the American future? What is the point of William Lloyd Garrisons poem, and why does Douglass use it to conclude his oration? Imagining yourself a middle-of-the-road white member of Douglass Rochester audience, how would you have reacted to this oration?

 

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America's Birthday: The True Meaning of July 4 (Part 3)

Amy Kass and Leon Kass

July 3, 2013

 

A Village Patriot

 

SARAH ORNE JEWETT

 

In this story from 1897, Maine novelist and short story writer Sarah Orne Jewett (18491909) explores different attitudes toward the Fourth of July among members of a group of workmen who, on July 3rd, are shingling the roof of a new country house outside Boston. Most of the men hail from Boston, to which they are eager to return. The old-timer in the group, Abel Thorndike, lives nearby in the local village, and differs from the others also in his way of celebrating the Fourth.

 

Read the full story.

 

Questions for the Reader

 

How does Thorndikes celebration of the Fourth differ from that of the others? What do you think accounts for the difference? According to the title, he is a village patriot, rather than the village patriot: does this perhaps suggest that patriotism is influenced by place, and that patriotism in villages differs from and might be deeper than patriotism in cities? Consider the bookends of the story, the beginning and the end, which take place with the men at work. What is the relation between work and the Fourth of July and between work and patriotism? What is the difference between a day off and a holiday? Which is the Fourth of July for you? What do you regard as the best way to celebrate it?

 

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