REMINDING OURSELVES--Reading the Declaration of Independence at the GALA Parade
JOHN ADAMS THOMAS JEFFERSON
I have been invited to read the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE today as the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP rallies around a reproduction of the STATUE OF LIBERTY on the side lines of the CRYSTAL LAKE GALA PARADE. Regular readers here know that the Group was banished from this year’s parade for carrying a “political statement” on a placard in last years parade-a simple list of the “Cost of the War” in Iraq. If you are not up to speed on this story, just scroll down the blog for more information.
Any way this is, more or less, what I am going to say introduction:
It was unbearably hot in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. The men crowded into the small rooms above a tavern occupied by a young Virginia lawyer, THOMAS JEFFERSON. Joining Jefferson were JOHN ADAMS, a Massachusetts lawyer with a combative personality; and BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the brilliant elder statesman from Pennsylvania.
Together they had been assigned by the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS to draft a momentous resolution-nothing short of a complete declaration of independence of the 13 North American British colonies from the mother county.
Colonists had been fighting Red Coats for more than a bloody year. But until this very moment, many of the rebels hoped only to establish the right of self government as loyal subjects of the King. But things had now gone too far. Too much blood had been shed. It had become apparent to the delegates that it had to be all or nothing-win independence or be hung as traitors.
Young Jefferson was the consensus choice as the primary author not only because of his noted skill with the quill, but because as a Virginian he would carry more weight in the southern and middle colonies than New Englander Adams.
Adams was a stern editor and to Jefferson’s distress eliminated some phases and reworked others. Franklin used his good humor and the esteem in which both of the other men held him to smooth ruffled feathers.
Congress, when they received the document, tinkered further, eliminating, much to Jefferson’s distress, an accusation against the Crown for fostering the slave trade.
On July 2nd Congress adopted a resolution for Independence. On July 4th delegates began affixing their signatures to the official document. It would be weeks before the last ones did. But the deed was done. The newly named UNITED STATES OF AMERICA proclaimed itself a self-governing nation. But they would have to fight a long war to establish that in fact.
In a letter to his wife, believing that July 2nd, the day the resolution was adopted, would become the anniversary celebrated, wrote:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
---John Adams in a letter to Abigail July 3, 1776
Fifty years later, in one of the amazing coincidences of all history, both Adams and Jefferson lay on their death beds. The two men had been close friends and comrades in the revolution. They became bitter political rivals. Jefferson defeated Adams in the Presidential election of 1800. In their later years their mutual friend, DR. BENJAMIN RUSH, enticed them to resume correspondence. The resulting exchange of letters by the two old patriots is now rightly regarded as an American treasure.
On July 4th 1826, Adams gasped to the family surrounding him, “Thomas Jefferson still survives!” and died. He was wrong. Jefferson had passed hours earlier at MONTECELLO.
Ten days before his death, in his last public communication, Jefferson had to decline an invitation from the citizens of near-by Charlottesville to attend their Fourth of July celebration. But he took the opportunity to once again affirm his faith in the American experiment:
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor the favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. There are grounds for hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day, forever refresh our recollection of those rights and an undiminished devotion to them.”
Thomas Jefferson, to the citizens of Charlottesville, Virginia June 23, 1826
Today, as we gather here under these circumstances perhaps it would be well to consider who today is booted and spurred, eager to saddle the backs of humanity. With that in mind, here are the words of Jefferson, Adams and the Continental Congress.