Two-Five-Oh

Born Again Are We?

Tomorrow marks the 250th Anniversary of the official adoption of the American Declaration of Independence. People living across this vast land and some around the globe will celebrate courageous actions of people whom we will never personally know.

In 1776, our colonial benefactors renounced any allegiance to an English King, and declared that they would govern themselves. They would be citizens, not subjects.

Words Matter

They wrote elegant words that have echoed down through the ages, for almost 13 generations.

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.

They believed a common creator made all equal and endowed human beings with rights that cannot be denied nor taken away, and based their entire political philosophy on this fundamental belief. Rights derive from our humanity, are God- or Nature-given and not bestowed by man or anything man-made, and government’s purpose is to protect these rights.

They pledged their “lives,” “fortunes,” and “sacred honor” to support their declaration, which began an eight year War for Independence. Raggedy men—some of African descent—with women and children in tow won this war, aided by the French.

15 Years Later

Years later, these audacious people created a written Constitution that rested all legitimate power in we the people, codifying their Declaration’s lofty language into our nation’s supreme law. To ensure that they could rationally govern themselves and protect the rights of the people for which they waged war, they divided government power. They loathed and feared petty, power hungry men.

No tyrants.

Imperfections

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of five committee members charged with drafting their generation’s revolutionary Declaration of Independence, were not perfect human beings. Jefferson wrote the Declaration and included all, all while he enslaved hundreds of Black people. Adams, though no enslaver, ignored his wife Abigail’s pleadings that he and Jefferson and their white male friends “Remember the Ladies,” and include women in their revolutionary ideas about individual rights and self-government. Abigail reminded her husband that “all Men would be tyrants if they could.” John laughed at her.

What to make of this paradox? All but with caveats. No property-less men, no Blacks, no Native Americans, no women.

The American Revolution, Ken Burns’ documentary tribute to the Declaration of Independence and the American War for Independence, includes a contemporary historian’s observation about this permanently vexing Jeffersonian paradox—our history with slavery and racism based on skin color in a land that champions freedom and liberty for all.

All human beings, she argues, should ask ourselves how we continue to do things we know are morally wrong.

Beneficiaries

Twelve successive generations of beneficiaries showed that we are somewhat worthy of our Founders’ gift. By our nation’s centennial—150 years ago—Americans had abolished slavery, codified birthright citizenship, and expanded the franchise to all men, propertied or not. By our bicentennial, our forebears had remembered the ladies, helped the world defeat Adolph Hitler’s murdering regime, and ended the American South’s brutal system of Jim Crow racial segregation. Our Jim Crow system, of course, was based on principles antithetical to those articulated by Jefferson.

To a certain degree, our parents and grandparents’ generations proved that they believed in the Declaration’s revolutionary language, and helped realize its inherent promise. All equal before the law, where justice favors no one more than another, and government’s role is the protection of individual rights articulated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights and subsequent Amendments.

Who Are We?

In marking 250 years since a generation declared and waged a bloody battle for their rights, what exactly are we who call ourselves their beneficiaries and direct descendants celebrating? What meaning do their enduring words have for our lives and for this moment? Do we who call ourselves Americans believe in the Declaration’s principles?

It’s a simple question: do we believe that all people are created equal, endowed by our common creator—not by man or government—with rights that cannot be denied and whose protection is the fundamental purpose of government? We who did not risk our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to declare independence and fight a revolution, have a choice: we either believe or we don’t.

Between the fireworks, the parade, the beer and the hot dog, we should pause a moment to reflect on our nation’s founding principles, and each and everyone ask: what do we believe?