Happy Independence Day!
Celebrating the day we didn't actually win independence.
As we celebrate our country’s 249th birthday (big one coming up next year!), I thought I’d share a couple of articles to make you feel a little better about our country, and how to make it better.
But first, some history.
Instead of leading with “Happy Independence Day!”, perhaps I should say “Happy Fourth of July!” Because, despite what you might think, Independence Day celebrates neither the day we earned our independence nor the day we began to battle for independence. The great day for which this holiday remembers, falls on the anniversary of our “Declaration of Independence,” not our “Earning of Independence.” This day in history was not the final stroke—either in writing or in combat—of our struggle for independence.
Nor was it the beginning of America’s war for independence. The colonies had already been in the throes of conflict against the British Crown.The Stamp Act of 1765 resulted in riots and protests across the colonies, and the Tea Act of 1773 led to the Boston Tea Party. Discontent grew until on April 19,1775, the famous “shot heard round the world” kicked off the battles of Lexington and Concord. In June of that same year, the Continental Army was formed, and George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief. By 1776, we were a full year into battles of the American Revolutionary War.
The grievances against the British government piled up. Twenty-seven of them, ranging from obstruction of justice, interference with self-government, economic exploitation, and the use of British armies, are listed in the Declaration itself.
And despite multiple attempts to reason with the British government, no positive changes were made. The Declaration acknowledges this:
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
So, we officially broke away, declaring our independence in July 1776.
King George III of England did not publicly acknowledge our declaration until October 1776 in his a speech before British Parliament. He opened by chastising us, his delusional “unhappy people”:
Nothing could have afforded me so much satisfaction as to have been able to inform you, at the opening of this session, that the troubles, which have so long distracted my colonies in North America, were at an end; and that my unhappy people, recovered from their delusion, had delivered themselves from the oppression of their leaders, and returned to their duty: but so daring and desperate is the spirit of those leaders, whose object has always been dominion and power, that they have now openly renounced all allegiance to the crown, and all political connection with this country; they have rejected, with circumstances of indignity and insult, the means of conciliation held out to them under the authority of our commission; and have presumed to set up their rebellious confederacies for independent states.
I especially appreciate the ironies of the closing lines in his speech, with subtleties delivered in typical monarchical fashion:
No people ever enjoyed more happiness, or lived under a milder government, than those now revolted provinces: the improvements in every art, of which they boast, declare it; their numbers, their wealth, their strength by sea and land, which they think sufficient to enable them to make head against the whole power of the mother-country, are irrefragable proofs of it. My desire is to restore to them the blessings of law and liberty, equally enjoyed by every British subject, which they have fatally and desperately exchanged for all the calamities of war, and the arbitrary tyranny of their chiefs.
Yeah…the colonists were happy, and the government overlords were mild. I’m sure the colonists were eager to be restored to the “blessings of law and liberty.”
For the next five years we warred.
The final major military engagement of the American Revolutionary War occurred at the Battle of Yorktown, in September and October 1781. But it wasn’t until September 1783 that the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the war.
So, if you think of Independence Day as a final event, a celebration of victory, you’re missing the whole story. It was but a declaration—a very important one—amid other actions and events and battles that ultimately led to our actual independence.
Articles
In this piece, Bari Weiss discusses the “Join, or Die” cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin and its relevance today. In her words, “This Independence Day, we don’t just celebrate the birthday of the words that made us—but the choice to live by them two and a half centuries later.”
The author’s lead-in to the below piece: “My brother-in-law is a truck-driving, Rogan-listening Covid skeptic. I was a speechwriter for Obama. I assumed we’d never be friends. I was wrong.”