Today is one of the most important holidays to me. It isn't the actual establishment of my country, it is the day we declared our INTENT to become one (and why). The difference matters. Upon the actual signing of The Declaration Of Independence (from Britain), it was an utterly uncertain thing. A bunch of unhappy British colonists complaining that they were represented in British Government and deciding that they were willing to fight about it.
And quite frankly, a bunch of rich colonists who were landowners and merchants who owed a lot of money to British banks and the Government and could conveniently be free of them if they got separated.
My first college textbook was 'The Economic Causes Of The Revolution' and while 'Government And Politic Science' was my major, history was my love.
But when push came to shove, it wasn't just the rich (indebted) landowners who fought. The colonists were of British descent (mostly) and shared a common past and social structure. A lot of poor colonists had little to gain except freedom from taxes they had no say about.
A lot of fighting went on, the British found less support over here than they expected, The French Navy turned up at a good point, and Britain discovered that fighting a war across an ocean using sailing ships didn't work very well.
Example: One British General asked for 950 horses. Half died on the way and most of the survivors were too ill to be useful.
Example: The British Generals decided that fighting the colonists in New England and the Mid Atlantic States wasn't working, so they went to the Southern colonies where people were "more British". Seldom was a worse decision ever made. The Southern colonists didn't fight stand-up battles like the British army was used to. They attacked in swamps, in woods, anyplace where there couldn't be a decisive battle.
Eventually, Britain decided it had more important places to fight about. And they were right, because the former colonists had few places to trade with but Britain and France and France wasn't the major trading power.
So why do I honor this day above almost all others?
Because of what we said in our Declaration Of Independence.
"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that
they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new
guards for their future security.
Etc...
We have not met those goals completely; it is possible we never will. There will always be challenges. But they ARE goals we keep closer to our hearts than some realize.
In spite of occasional presidential flaws like Donald Trump (there have been some real fails in the past too), the majority of US citizenry holds to those goals. We will weather this current error and recover from it.
But for today, I mostly want to honor the start of the US, with some background...
And, as is my habit on this day, I will read the entire Declaration out loud on the deck (quietly)...
