America’s audacious ambitions make it difficult for others to understand us. True, we are not the only country that has dared to challenge a military superpower, even though breaking with the British qualifies Independence Day as worthy of celebration. No, we are unique among the great nations of the earth because our aspirations are eternal by design. There is no battle that marks the end of our struggle. There is no treaty that announces, “this is finished, we have won.”
In this sense, Independence Day is not America’s birthday, although I have incorrectly used that metaphor myself. Lincoln got it right that America was “conceived in liberty” on July 4, 1776. On that day our nation remained nothing more than a “proposition,” albeit a bold one, that somewhere and for the first time a government would be “instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The Founders knew the magnitude of the task that they set for us. Centuries of British colonial rule embedded the scourge of slavery among us. Conquering the prejudices of those committed to the old ways promised further centuries of sacrifice and little guarantee of success. Yet, the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence anyway, fully aware of the danger to themselves and the obligation they created for each successive generation. Americans understand this, which makes us such an inscrutable people.
Alexander Hamilton foresaw the critical importance of America to the world. In Federalist No. 1, he wrote that “it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, to decide by their conduct and example, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice.” Hamilton foresaw our fledging nation as “an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.” Our failure would “deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.”
I am reminded of this whenever I am abroad. Try to explain to someone who is not American that the Founders made it every American’s “duty…to provide new Guards.” My experience is that you will be greeted with a perplexed and uncomprehending expression. Despite our quarrels, Americans from throughout the nation will never respond with that vacant stare.
For us, our burden is our birthright, which makes it right and just that we set off fireworks, give speeches, wave flags, and have parades. We are not the guardians of some dead past. We are each in our turn at the vanguard of the struggle for a more perfect future for the world. Anything less would be “the general misfortune of mankind.”
Happy Independence Day everyone.
- https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
- https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
- Hamilton, Alexander, John Jay, James Madison, and Robert Scigliano. “The Federalist No. 1 Hamilton.” Essay. New York: Modern Library, Random House, Inc., 1787.