Like many holidays, today's celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is wrapped in myth and collective wisdom. The Declaration of Independence was actually passed by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 2, 1776. On the Fourth, the delegates agreed to publish the declaration penned by Thomas Jefferson and others. It was not until July 8 that the declaration was read to a public audience.
Despite these temporal inconsistencies, the Fourth of July has been celebrated as Independence Day at least since 1777, and that should be good enough for us 231 years later.
Unlike some other patriotic holidays, the Fourth of July is not a military celebration. Veterans Day and Memorial Day are all about the sacrifices of soldiers and their families. But Independence Day does not celebrate any martial victories. Indeed, on that hot summer day in 1776, the United Colonies had no cause for military celebration. The colonies' rag-tag militias were up against the most powerful military and naval force in the world, and their chances of success seemed slim indeed.
Nevertheless, the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor on the principle, so eloquently put forth in Jefferson's immortal words, of the right of free people to choose their own government. It was a revolutionary principle in an age of divine-right kings.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident," Jefferson wrote, "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 those 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 those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it ... ." Those words are still inspiring, still revolutionary.
In an election year that promises change on the national level, we celebrate the courage of those who had the temerity to seize the opportunity to bring about real change and to inspire future generations with their soaring rhetoric and their timeless principles.
Wilson's Fourth of July celebration will include festive music, flags and fireworks. Veterans who fought to defend the principles of 1776 will be honored. But this day should also include a pause to re-read the words the Continental Congress approved, words that made this nation and continues to hold it together.