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July 03, 2003

Celebrating the Fourth

Beyond the fireworks and barbeques, the place to start Independence Day is with The Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's masterpiece is nothing less than a statement of what America stands for, and its words ring no less true today than they did some 227 years ago. The Constitution is the how of America, but the Declaration is the why, and it's good to take just a few minutes to review it to remind ourselves just what got us started, and keeps us going even today.

And nothing helps there less than an understanding of how the Declaration came to be, and for that you can't beat 1776. No, it's not by any stretch a precise account of the events surrounding the writing and passage of the Declaration, but it gets the important parts right. En route to that, it reminds the viewer of just how frightening a course those thirteen colonies were setting back then. Today we look back on the Revolution as inevitable, but in July 1776, victory seemed a faint hope rather than an eventual certainty. To sign a document pledging one's life, one's fortune, and one's sacred honor meant, quite likely, death at the end of an English rope. The courage shown by those men, and the compromises that had to be made to achieve passage of the Declaration, are plainly laid out in this film. Watch it not for the history, but for the feeling of the event, and enjoy it.

We in the blogosphere tend to spend a lot of time fighting about what America should or shouldn't do, what she's done wrong, and what she stands for. Today, however, take a few minutes to remember what she's done right.