Independence Day    

    The United States of America were not born on this day. This was more like conception. We were just fertilized, a gleam in the Founding Fathers’ collective eye. What happened was, after provocation, the Colonies decided to join together to throw off the yoke of the English King and Parliament, neither of whom respected them as Englishmen, and instead, saw them as a cash cow. The colonies rarely agreed on anything, but with patient lobbying from Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and others, they agreed on this much. They expected to be treated with respect by their former masters, and control their own futures, for better or worse. And they threw in their collective fortunes to wage a war to make that happen. Lost in the enlightenment fervor of Jefferson’s timeless prose, is the reality of slavery, the hostility of rural versus urban constituencies, and the unresolved Native American question. These conflicts are not resolved even yet, 245 years and a Civil War later. But, having plighted their troth to the concept, the States began a war against the mightiest military on the planet, and finally won. Thanks, of course, to perennial British adversaries and their material support by land and by sea. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, five were captured and killed by the British as traitors, twelve had their houses burned, nine died in the subsequent Revolution, two more lost sons, and many of the rest died penniless. Once the war was won, a return to squabbling sibship brought us the Articles of Confederation, and a dysfunctional government, hobbled by suspicion of central power, and unwillingness to pay into the common good with taxes. There was not even an executive branch, nor a Judiciary. John Hanson, a man unknown to most of us, was the first de facto leader, for a one year term, under the Articles. The United States of America actually became the United States at the adoption of the Constitution, adopted in 1787, and not ratified, finally, until fall of 1788. At that point, George Washington was elected unanimously by the Electoral College, for a four year term. So concluded a turbulent and very difficult pregnancy, and a complicated and protracted delivery, but the birth finally happened, twelve years and much travail having passed. The celebration of the Declaration these days is mostly an excuse for barbecue and fireworks, but it was only the faltering start of the American Experiment, still a work in progress, and still fragile. Many of those who conceived of us, paid with their lives and families and treasure. Remember them this day.