Peggie Noonan offers a fine commemoration of the Founding Fathers who made our independence possible and to David McCullough, one of the America's finest historians, paying tribute to their memory.
Making History
"Monday, July 1, was heavy and hot, and a full-scale summer storm passed through the city late in the morning. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose to speak. He knew he was endangering the respect in which he was broadly held, his 'popularity,' but he once again counseled caution: Slow down, separation from Britain is 'premature,' to declare independence now would be 'to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper.' When he sat down, 'all was silent except for the rain that had begun spattering against the widows.'
Then John Adams rose. He wished he had the power of the ancient orators of Greece and Rome, he said; surely they had never faced a question of greater human import.
He made, again, the case for independence. Now is the time, the facts are inescapable, the people are for it, we are not so much declaring as acknowledging reality. 'Looking into the future [he] saw a new nation, a new time, all much in the spirit of lines he had written in a recent letter to a friend: '. . . We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.' ' Outside the wind picked up and the storm struck hard with thunder and lightning. Storms had in the past unnerved Adams, but he spoke steadily, logically and compellingly for two hours.
After nine hours of debate, the voting commenced. The yeses were in the majority, but there were more noes than expected. Someone moved a final vote be taken the next morning. Adams and the rest hastily agreed.
That night word reached Philadelphia that the British fleet, a hundred ships, had been sighted off New York.
The next day, July 2, the final voting began. It went quickly. This was a pivotal moment in the political history of man. A creative, imaginative, historically conscious person in the middle of a thing so huge and full of consequence will try to notice things, to keep them forever in his eyes and pass them on. Here is a thing John Adams would never forget:
At 9 in the morning, just as the doors to the Congress were to be closed, "Caesar Rodney, mud spattered, 'booted and spurred,' made his dramatic entrance. The tall, thin Rodney—the 'oddest-looking man in the world,' Adams once described him—had been made to appear stranger still, and more to be pitied, by a skin cancer on one side of his face that he kept hidden behind a scarf of green silk. But, as Adams had also recognized, Rodney was a man of spirit, of 'fire.' Almost unimaginably, he had ridden eighty miles through the night, changing horses several times, to be there in time to cast his vote.'
All of these quotes are from David McCullough's 'John Adams.' More on Mr. McCullough in a moment.
The vote was completed: 12 for independence, New York abstaining, no one opposing. 'The break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence. If not all 13 clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the others silent the effect was the same.'
On July 3, Congress argued over the wording and exact content of the formal Declaration. An indictment of the slave trade was dropped. In all, Thomas Jefferson saw roughly 25% of what he'd written wind up on the floor.
On July 4, discussion ended, debate was closed, a vote on the final draft of the Declaration of Independence was called, and the results were as on July 2. Congress ordered the document be printed. They'd sign it in a month. For now, John Hancock and one other, Charles Thompson, fixed their signatures.
Those present thought the great day had been July 2—the vote for independence itself. John Adams, who'd emoted over the 2nd in letters to Abigail, didn't even mention the 4th, and Thomas Jefferson famously went shopping that afternoon for ladies' gloves.
But on the morning of July 5, the people of Philadelphia started getting their hands on independently printed copies of the Declaration, and the impact was electric: My God, look what they said yesterday—'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' And on the 6th, a local newspaper carried the text of what had been agreed upon on the 4th. And so the celebration of the Fourth of July as one of the signal moments in the history of human freedom, was born. And so we mark it still.'"
Read the rest of the column for a glimpse of Peggie honoring David McCullough and his contributions to American history.
It is a nice moment, this Independence Day, for us to remember and appreciate better the risks, sacrafices and wise efforts that went into founding our democracy and making our liberty possible.
If there is anything this period has taught me, it is how easily we take that freedom, and all of our most cherished values, for granted, in the wake of our fears about what liberty and our free will make possible in this world, good and bad.
It is a shame that we take the courage of these men and women for granted as we do. It is a greater shame that we attribute that courage to their use of force rather than to their much more powerful consciences and the limitations that they proscribed for the use of force to preserve our liberty and its fruits.
July 4th, this year, should be a solemn reflection on the liberal values and liberty that make this day and this country great and how and why we have so readily taken those values for granted. Especially, at the end of a century that, more than any other, demonstrated the genuine power of liberty in the face of the ugly and destructive consequences of force as a governing philosophy.
May this year mark a turning point in our recommitment to the liberal society they founded, to the liberal world they have inspired, and to the liberal and democratic century that lies ahead.
