Freedom is as Freedom Does: July 4
To the Editor:
A FCR letter on June 30 reminded patriots that the Declaration of Independence “contained the first formal assertion by a whole people of their right to a government of their own choice.” The author wrongly claims that a “whole people” claimed that right. Historians agree that approximately one third of the colonists supported independence, another third (British Loyalists) opposed it, and one third were willing to see what happened if independence were pressed. The document eventually helped white males with property gain their freedom, but it did not, nor did the Constitution, champion the freedom of women, indigenous people and African slaves. The Revolution was supported by people who did not gain freedom. Women were not granted many “universal” rights, including the right to vote, until 1920. Slavery was not ended until after the Civil War. Native Americans were systematically “pacified.”
Several drafts of the Declaration were created before one was agreed on. When Thomas Jefferson submitted a draft with a paragraph on slavery, it was opposed by South Carolina and Georgia delegates and northern delegates involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. That paragraph indicted King George III for being “Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold,” and for suppressing “every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.”
Colonists such as Sam Adams and his “co-conspirators” in Boston and other colonies sought to justify separation from Great Britain. Some colonies proposed separationist documents. A major spark of freedom was struck in the Continental Congress when Patrick Henry of Virginia read his resolution: “Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
To achieve freedom from Britain, the colonies needed the means and rationale to do so. Colonial militias had been created, trained, and armed during the French and Indian War. Colonies learned to depend on themselves, but to separate, they had to be economically viable. British Acts were passed to pay for that War. Commercially, Great Britain weaponized the interests of the British West Indies Company. If the colonists were to use non-importation to defeat the British government, they needed to make substitute goods, destroy goods (such as tea), and restrict the unloading of ship cargoes. The British Navy was sent to protect British commercial interests. To support the colonial cause, women turned to making goods and products that they must not buy. During his walks around Boston at night, going to and from seditionist meetings, Sam Adams observed with a satisfied smile, girls as young as 8 and women as old as 80 spinning and weaving cloth. They clothed and fed a community even though they would be denied citizenship rights.
Pro-independence agitators tested whether a sufficient number of colonists would assert their rights. Could they achieve it and keep it? Needing help, they called on the French, Britain’s mortal enemies. Would an indictment of the evil rule by a British monarch prevent an absolute French monarch from supporting the colonial cause? Enter the Marquis de Lafayette (whose wife’s sister, mother, and grandmother would die on the French guillotine during the French Revolution). Lafayette gained Louis XVI’s help. Without it, colonial independence would not have been achieved. Louis did not ascribe to the principles of the Declaration of Independence which would inspire the French Revolution and lead to his execution. But Louis wanted to weaken Great Britain.
Out of this turbulence, colonial victory was achieved. Colonies used the Articles of Confederation to form a decentralized government. When that government failed, the new nation ratified the Constitution, with its Bill of Rights. Having told soldiers and members of the Continental Congress that success required sacrifice and commitment, George Washington formed a federal system, a stronger, more central government. The new nation struggled with the experiment of democratic self-governance. Self-taxation through a central government became contested ground. That led to Shay’s Rebellion in Western Massachusetts in 1786-1787 and to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 in Western Pennsylvania. The question was, how can revenue be raised so that government could meet the needs of its citizens? The Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 to change the conditions for citizenship and free speech. How much freedom and autonomy do states, communities, and individuals have, and how much power must the federal government exert to succeed?
Battles over principles of freedom in the Declaration continued, even among its authors. One, John Adams, advocated a strong central government as the second president. Thomas Jefferson, who advocated more local control, was the third president. Was it the Hand of God, coincidence, or irony that these two former presidents and co-authors of the Declaration died on July 4, 1826, 50 years to the day after its ratification?
By 1826, July 4th had become a popular day of celebration after the War of 1812, but what were citizens celebrating? The FCR letter emphasizes the second paragraph of the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Take the word “men” literally and add white and propertied. Women had limited freedom as did Native Americans. Slaves had none.
Addressing the celebratory fervor that had grown around the Declaration, abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke to the Rochester (New York) Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, 1852. He honored the patriots for what they had accomplished and for loving “their country better than their own private interests.” But freedom faced a problem. Millions of humans were chattel slaves. Addressing the question, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” he opened: “The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me.” Douglass honored the nation’s founders for their insight and resolve, but on this “birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom,” he said, “with all my soul, the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July!” The problem was “the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion.” That the Constitution affirmed the Fugitive Slave Law was “one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.” Millions of humans suffered the oppression of chattel slavery in the nation that once thought governance by the British government to be “unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive.”
The nation justified in 1776 and ratified by Constitution in 1788 was tested again during the US Civil War, 1860-1865. Ironically, two great battles of that War ended on July 4, those of Vicksburg and of Gettysburg. Was it coincidence or the Hand of God that brought those battles to close on that day? As the cemetery at Gettysburg was consecrated, Abraham Lincoln’s speech, hardly longer than a tweet, began: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.” Had they died in vain? “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The Declaration and Constitution are worthy of a nation of patriots, but history emphasizes how citizens cannot take freedom for granted. Citizen’s judgment and commitment cannot be swayed by callous leaders. They must realize that each day the principles of our country are tested in ways that cannot be masked but challenge our willingness to live the ideals of freedom through shared, moral obligation. Together, with commitment to each other, we are a strong nation.
Is freedom a zero-sum game or a collaborative effort guided by moral obligation to the agency and interests of others? Regarding his actions during the certification of Biden’s presidency on January 6, Vice President Pence acknowledged the limits on his freedom to act. He was obligated to serve the freedom of others. In his memoir, Pence reflected that in a nation that fought to rid themselves of a monarch, “The last thing the framers of the Constitution would have intended would be to confer unchecked authority on one person.”