Posted on 07/04/2023 6:01:04 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Our national Fourth of July holiday—currently the nation’s 247th since the first in 1776—marks the birth of the United States.
The iconic Declaration of Independence was published on the 4th and largely written by Thomas Jefferson. Its core sentence would become among the most famous words in American history:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Those aspirations at the outset pledged the new American nation to hold to its promises “that all men are created equal.”
In other words, so-called white males established a foundational document whose inherent logic was that the millions of Americans not yet born—who would not necessarily look like them, or share their ancestry—would become their political equals.
Most nation founders do not envision the future of their country in terms that might not privilege those of their own tribe.
In contrast, today it would be difficult for a foreign national to become a full-fledged Chinese, Mexican, or Iranian citizen, with full equal rights, who either did not look like, or embrace a religion different from, the majority population.
What followed from the Declaration was a constant demand from many quarters for America to live up to its own exalted words.
Eighty-five years later, that promise culminated in a horrific Civil War that cost 700,000 American lives to remove the stain of slavery, and to honor the promise of the Fourth.
“All men are created equal” further entailed another century of protest and reform, until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s finally enshrined into law equality of opportunity statutes.
But note what the Declaration was not...
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
The Constitution did not guarantee the redistribution-ism of communism.
VDH ping
The Constitution doesn’t say that you have a guarantee of happiness.
The Declaration of Independence has no legal standing. The government was organized by the laws of the individual colonies plus the Articles of Confederation adopted November 15, 1777.
The Declaration of Independence was a propaganda document intended to garner support of foreign powers by legitimating the War of Independence.
“all men are created equal” was an objection to the special legal privileges of nobility and to the divine right of kings.
Are you on the right site. The Decleration always stands.
I’m just glad Americans were intelligent enough to NOT NAME IT, Julyteenth or Quatro de Julio. That’s retarded as hell.
It was originally “Life, Liberty, and Property”.
I make it a point not to call it the Fourth of July. I call it Independence Day.
This reminded me it’s been forty-seven years since The Bicentennial.
Yikes.
bttt
It doesn’t but America is sorely lacking happiness these days.
I posted this earlier https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4165462/posts
I know. I was just recalling that I went to the Bicentennial concert at Tampa Stadium on 4-Jul-1976. The concert was Loggins & Messina, Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. Seems like yesterday.
The foundational date of our “new order” was canonized as 1776. Yet note it was not some pretentious Jacobin “Year 1”—as if everything in the past was to be erased.
Unlike revolutionary France’s 1789 “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” the American Declaration was far more modest in its confidence in what government could or should achieve.
Jefferson inserted no such French wording about government power concerning “social distinctions” or “disturbing the public order” or “in proportion to their means.”
Other republics birthed parliamentary systems.
They usually spawned multiple splinter parties. They were characterized by sudden creations and collapses of ruling governments, depending on volatile public mood swings.
Often backroom deals were common to appoint new presidents and prime ministers—or dismiss them.
Instead, our Constitution, in classical fashion, established a bicameral Congress, an executive president and a supreme court.
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
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I make it a point not to call it the Fourth of July. I call it Independence Day.
I make it a point not to call it the Fourth of July. I call it Independence Day.
I too call it Independence Day.
(VDH is a national treasure!)
No it doesn’t, it gives the right to achieve it on your merits.
It did not want government on your back grinding you down.
Here we are.
The foundational date of our “new order” was canonized as 1776. Yet note it was not some pretentious Jacobin “Year 1”—as if everything in the past was to be erased.
This is not true. Though the practice did not last, the Constitution says in the Signatory section:
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.
"The Twelfth" refers to the 12th year since the Declaration of Independence, adhering to Christian religious traditions of Western civilization's practice of dating important documents relative to some milestone date.
See this section from The Heritage Foundation Guide to the Constitution, the Attestation Clause for details. I'm surprised that Dr. Hanson missed this factoid.
-PJ
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