We the People at 250
To the Editor:
As the 249th July 4th passes, we should examine the health of our nation in preparation for the 250th celebration which will be trumpeted, but perhaps not justified.At 50 year intervals, the Fourth has been celebrated during the presidential terms of John Quincy Adams, U.S. Grant during the highly contentious presidential campaign of Rutherford B. Hayes which nearly tore the nation apart, Calvin Coolidge whose administration merely slowed the likelihood of the Great Depression three years later, and Gerald Ford who replaced the disgraced Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew to be the only person to serve as president who was not popularly elected. An additional irony is that on July 4, 1826, both John Adams (father of John Quincy Adams) and Thomas Jefferson died. After being allies in the creation of the United States, Adams and Jefferson debated bitterly the amount and nature of government for the new nation and its place in the world, a dispute reconciled by John Quincy Adams’s centrism.
Celebration of July 4th looks back fondly and rarely speculates about the future health of the nation. This next year may be different in that regard. Polls suggest that Americans are concerned that democracy is threatened. Last fall, Pew reported: “Americans are unhappier and more divided than most about the state of their democracy, and particularly gloomy about its prospects for improvement.” A study by Data In Progress reported in March “that an overwhelming majority of voters (93%) think it is important that the U.S. remains a democracy. However, only a slim majority of voters (52%) think democracy is currently working well in the U.S., while 44% think it’s not working well. These results are driven by partisanship, with 67% of Republicans saying that democracy is working well, and 62% of Democrats saying democracy is not working well. Independents are split, with a slim plurality (48%) saying democracy is working well and 45% saying it’s not.” A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll found that “three-quarters of Americans say democracy is under serious threat.”
Nearly 50 years ago, President Gerald Ford gave his assessment in Philadelphia the home of the Declaration of Independence. On July 4, 1976, he observed: “Like Lincoln, I feel both pride and humility, rejoicing and reverence as I stand in the place where two centuries ago the United States of America was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The proclaimed purpose of the Declaration was “to secure the rights of the individuals against even government itself. But the Declaration did not tell us how to accomplish this purpose or what kind of government to set up.” “The Declaration was not a protest against government but against the excesses of government.” Ford implied that we might not have leaders of the quality of those who signed the Declaration: “of the 56 men who signed our great Declaration, 5 were taken prisoner, 12 had their homes sacked, 2 lost their sons, 9 died in the war itself.” In the final stirring words of the Declaration, they pledged to one another “our lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” “When liberty was at stake, they were willing to pay the price.” Today, the rich and powerful often believe that government must serve them even to the disadvantage of others.
Ford set out a challenge: “As we begin our third century, there is still so much to be done. We must increase the independence of the individual and the opportunity of all Americans to attain their full potential. We must ensure each citizen’s right to privacy. We must create a more beautiful America, making human works conform to the harmony of nature. We must develop a safer society, so ordered that happiness may be pursued without fear of crime or manmade hazards. We must build a more stable international order, politically, economically, and legally. We must match the great breakthroughs of the past century by improving health and conquering disease. We must continue to unlock the secrets of the universe beyond our planet as well as within ourselves. We must work to enrich the quality of American life at work, at play, and in our homes.”
Observers note our nation’s uneven performance on these matters. We have a year to determine whether we are moving more closely to the mark of democratic republicanism or veering away from that mark by serving narrow interests to the detriment of those of “we the people.”
Bob Heath Carmine