Candace deRussy: Amid the revelry of July 4th — which John Adams foresaw would become a “great anniversary Festival” — I find it inspiring to recall the spiritual foundation of our Founders’ break with the political bondage of the past, i.e., their understanding that it is by the grace of “Nature’s God,” our “Creator,” that we the people are entitled to live in a state of liberty and that, in Adams’s words, the new Festival “ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
Ron Radosh: July 4 gives me time to reflect on the good fortune I had that my parents emigrated from Poland and Russia and came to the United States. Starting from nothing, they both moved into the middle class and gave me a solid foundation to achieve my dreams, and in so doing to appreciate the great country that is the United States of America.
It took me far too long to reject the leftist assumptions I had grown up with, but my own experiences led me to come to understand that for all its problems, the United States stands alone as an experiment that has worked. Our Constitution provides the framework for success, and as I watch the evening fireworks, I am thankful that I am able to say I am an American.
Amity Shlaes: A can of Moxie in my hand, joining the parade in Plymouth Notch, Vt. that marches to the grave of Calvin Coolidge, the only president born on Independence Day, the president who believed in “things of the spirit.”
Tony Woodlief: July 4 is a time to honor those who fought for American freedom, to remember how precious and rare those freedoms are, and to rededicate ourselves to bringing the ever-loving smack to anyone who wants to take them away.
On your feet&remove your hats-
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy father used to have a picture of Lysander Spooner on the fridge next to the usual New Yorker cartoons and Farside favorites. It appeared shortly after we got a modem and an ISP. I asked him "Who's this weird bearded dude?" "Oh he was an anarchist/abolitionist/defender of liberty blah blah blah." "Huh, okay."
Years later I finally read "No Treason" by Lysander Spooner. We're still all slaves.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse'Amid the revelry of July 4th — which John Adams foresaw would become a “great anniversary Festival” ...'
Strictly speaking, Adams thought that July *2nd* would be celebrated as Independence Day.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"...that it is by the grace of “Nature’s God,” our “Creator,” that we the people are entitled to live in a state of liberty...."
Except that it's not. Our rights don't come from God; they come from our humanity, the autonomous self-agency we all share in equal part. Jefferson understood that. That's why his draft read, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation, they derive rights inherent and inalienable...." "That from that equal creation...." He's not talking about the creative force. He's talking about the fact that we are all equally human, and our humanness is the source of our rights.
Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Adams, back through Montesquieu and Locke—all of them embraced this concept of nature-borne rights. Madison: "If ‘all men are by nature equally free and independent,’ all men are to be considered as entering into Society on equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights." Montesquieu: "Antecedent to the above-mentioned laws are those of nature, so called, because they derive their force entirely from our frame and existence." Locke: "A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another.... The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions...."
Perhaps you believe that our faculties, our autonomy, were instilled in us by God. I don't. Either belief is fine, as the natural rights we enjoy don't require such human aspects to be divinely instilled. They only require that they exist at all, which they do.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a recent arrival to life in the US- correct me if im wrong,- but my perception is that July 4 has become very much a celebration for anglo/euro descent- americans but i don't see Hispanics, african and Asian Americans really celebrating this at all...is this a misconception?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmity Shlaes' book about Calvin Coolidge can't come soon enough.
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