As the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached, Jefferson, 83 and ill, was in no position to leave his mountaintop estate. He did respond to requests for a written statement in which he praised “the blessings and security of self-government,” while acknowledging that “all eyes are opened or opening to the rights of men.”
For Jefferson, the fact that America was a thriving nation 50 years after his Declaration was adopted by Congress was proof that such a form of government could endure and prosper. In 1776, the success of the American experiment built on the principles of self-evident truths and unalienable rights was anything but certain. Many of the signers of that document knew they stood a better chance of being hanged than winning their independence.
We today suffer from the certainty of 20/20 hindsight. We take our knowledge of how things turned out and read it back in the past as though actors in our revolution against England could clearly see the future result of their actions. That tendency diminishes the courage of their actions, as they challenged the mightiest military and economic power of their day in the name of an experiment in governance that had no precedent for success in history.
Jefferson called it a “palpable truth” that “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred.” If so, it was a truth many in his age did not accept.
On that 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826, the country received what many saw as a sign of divine favor for their experiment. Jefferson passed at Monticello, while his partner in revolution and sometime nemesis in politics, John Adams, 90, joined him in the hereafter just five hours later. To have two such founding members of the revolutionary generation, two who had served as president, die within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by Congress was nothing short of a divine message.
For the great orator from Massachusetts, Daniel Webster, the deaths offered “proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of His care.”
The Declaration that we celebrate on July 4 has always been a statement of our aspirations as a people. We have given it new meaning over time, extending the right of participation in government to groups that had very little say in the 18th century. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams urged her husband to “remember the ladies” during the deliberations in Congress. It would be many decades before the ladies were given full participation in self-government, but it did happen.
We fought a Civil War to, in Lincoln’s words, ensure that “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” We often ignore the uncomfortable truth that our experiment in government has come close to failure on more than one occasion.
One of the major challenges we face is the internal conflict that is endemic to self-government. We will not exorcise that conflict. It is baked into our DNA. The challenge is to find ways to accommodate it, to undercut its divisiveness, and absorb it into the structures and pathways of self-government as they have evolved over our almost 250 years since the Declaration acted as midwife for a new nation.
If we give up on our institutions, if winning becomes our sole objective, if we demonize those with whom we disagree, we will surely do harm to the legacy we celebrate on this most important holiday.
Benjamin Franklin warned of the need for vigilance and effort if America’s experiment in democracy were to truly succeed. It did succeed beyond the expectations of any of even the most optimistic of its midwives. Next week, we celebrate the 246th anniversary of the founding document that has provided the philosophical foundation of our experiment in self-government. It may be time to make a renewed commitment to the legacy of that document.
When Franklin was asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention had bestowed on the new nation, his reply was “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” The question is still open over two centuries later: Can we keep it?
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From the Bible
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. — James 1:17
