Your annual Independence Day huzzah! and admonition:
Happy Independence Day, everyone. Commander Zero kinda beat me to it, but your job today is to read the following:
The Declaration of Independence
and, if you have a little extra time:
And then do your best to make John Adams’ visions come true, though he didn’t realize we’d celebrate the day the Declaration was read, not the day it was signed:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
Edited to add: Common Sense audiobook, if you’re interested. And text – it’s not a particularly quick read, but it’s worth reading/hearing all the same!
I like Paine as much as anyone, but if any of the founding fathers tended socialist it was him. Adams isn’t my favorite either because of the Alien and Sedition Acts. If there’s anyone I honor today it’s Jefferson: writer of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, founder of the University of Virginia, archaeologist, tomato enthusiast, and inventor of the swivel chair who passed away on this date 183 years ago.
Agrarian justice was definitely a little socialist for my taste.
Adams had the Alien and Sedition acts. Jefferson had slaves. They all had their faults.
I am rather fond of TJ, though.
Jefferson gets bonus points because he felt guilty about violating the Constitution to buy the Louisiana territory, which is probably the last time any American president felt guilty about violating the Constitution. But that’s a talk for another holiday.