Tag Archives: Fourth of July

US at 250

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“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.”

John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776

John Adams, by far the most prescient of the founders, described Independence Day in this letter sent to his wife Abigail on July 3rd, 1776. He got most of it right.

Adams predicted that the anniversary of American independence would be celebrated forever. He expected July 2 to become Independence Day because that was the day Congress approved Virginia’s resolution that the thirteen colonies declare their independence from England. Instead, we celebrate July 4, the date on which the text of the Declaration of Independence was approved and eventually printed with that date. But his description, parades, bells, fireworks (“illuminations”), bonfires, sports, and public celebrations, closely resembles how we celebrate the Fourth of July today.

Adams foresaw the growth of the United States of America to span the continent from west coast to east. And his letter to Abigail captures his confidence that the new nation would endure as a great nation among those of the world.

I often wonder, in this age of divisiveness, if we have fulfilled Adams’s dreams. The United States is unquestionably the world leader in many respects. It has the world’s biggest economy. It has grown dramatically in population. It has expanded to stretch from one ocean to the next. It claims to have the most powerful military, although it doesn’t seem to be able to keep a strait essential to the world’s energy supply open. It certainly outspends the next dozen or so countries on that military. Adams foresaw those things and I think on those points the United States today would please him.

But he would be less pleased to discover that his biggest fears have also come to pass. He wrote of the dangers facing the new republic. His biggest fear came not from without, but from within. He warned that avarice could produce leaders who put personal gain over the needs of the people. He predicted that under certain circumstances, factions succumbing to greed for power and money could infect multiple branches of government and defeat the system of checks and balances the framers wrote into the Constitution in 1787. I do not believe he would be pleased with the current state of affairs in Washington.

The Declaration was always a contradiction. It famously contains what the great biographer Walter Isaacson calls, “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.” Yet the author of, ““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,” Thomas Jefferson, was a slaveholder throughout his entire life, as were many of the Revolutionary era leaders.

Jefferson listed slavery as one of the evils brought to the new world by the King of England. But that sentence was removed from the Declaration during the final debate. Jefferson later wrote it was the price for gaining the acquiesce of South Carolina and Georgia to the independence resolution.

Slavery wasn’t abolished until the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, after the Civil War. Voting rights for women didn’t arrive until the 20th century, with ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Many people believe the nation should work toward unity, the assimilation of the various immigrant groups which have arrived on our shores in waves over the years. This is what I call the “great melting pot” strategy. This may be the answer in other countries, where the population is homogeneous and it is easy to be loyal to a race or a land. The United States has never been that. Unless you can trace your lineage to the indigenous people, and only about two per cent of the population can, then you trace your roots to someplace else. We expect immigrants to be loyal to the country, and history proves they are. Yet we retain as important parts of our identity those aspects of heritage which our ancestors brought to these shores.

There is no question that this diversity, a word the present administration sees as obscene, adds to our divisions. But history proves it is also a source of great strength. We should embrace the diversity of our people. We should strive toward tolerance and understanding of fellow Americans who have stories which are different than our own. Our diversity makes it clear that the people who are Americans choose to be Americans. I see in the continuing clamor of people from all over the world to immigrant to the United States evidence that we are doing something right.

For me the obvious contradiction between the words of the Declaration and reality is resolved by viewing the Declaration we celebrate today as aspirational, rather than literal. The document was a statement of profound principles and ideals, rather than a word-for-word reflection of 1776 reality. It remains so to this day as we strive to, in the words of the great preamble to the Constitution, “form a more perfect union.” For me, that gives hope that we can come closer to our goals. Someday.

“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. 1776

Do we see on the occasion of our 250th birthday John’s rays of ravishing light and glory?

Do we agree with Adams, that the end is more than worth all the trials and tribulations, the blood and the treasure? That the end is more than worth all the means?

It’s up to us now. And to the generations to come.

Happy Birthday America.

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It’s not Easy Being Green

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The economy, the war, the arch, the east wing, all of these controversies swirling around Washington these days seem to pale when compared to the saga of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The pool recently underwent a $14 million repainting project ordered by Donald Trump. However, within two weeks of refilling, the pool developed severe algae blooms that turned the water green, and its new blue paint began peeling in large chunks.

Trump insisted that the bottom of the pool be repainted “American flag blue” and that the work be completed well before the nation’s 250 birthday celebration on the Fourth of July. But the repainting did not address the well-known problems with the pool, which is more than one hundred years old.

Trump has claimed, with his usual lack of evidence, that the peeling paint and algae were caused by vandals who slashed a 300-foot gash in the sealant and dumped chemicals into the water. In a court filing, an official with the National Park Service declares, “… the U.S. Park Police responded to an NPS report of damage to the reflecting pool, including a caulk over the foam sealant that was cut with a sharp knife or razor and destruction of delaminating surface material. In addition, approximately 70 fence post tops were thrown into the pool.”

U.S. Park Police say they have arrested and cited multiple individuals in connection with the claims. Funny thing about this. There has been no public arraignment of anyone charged with this vandalism and no notice of arrests. Both would be normal procedure. And the area of the pool is under 24-hour surveillance, and no pictures have surfaced showing any kind of vandalism. In spite of the arrests, the only visual evidence shows someone bending over and putting her hands in the water. Another woman is seen taking pictures of the water with her mobile phone.

Trump has called for harsh penalties for the alleged vandals. That means if you vandalize the reflecting pool you will have the book thrown at you. If you attack the Capitol and beat Capitol Police, you will get a pardon and be entitled to compenensation. Go figure.

Critics and experts suggest that the peeling may be due to a faulty renovation. They say the material installed at the bottom of the pool should resist cutting and tearing. But they also say the material may not have been able to adhere to the concrete surface. Scores of federal government workers have now been deployed to combat the green, a battle Trump compared to the war with Iran. Workers were seen on site in waders, attempting to fish out algae and eliminate patches of deep green across the pool.

As the “green crisis” unfolded, the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, had claimed the water was “crystal clear”, and blamed the “Fake News Media” for reports to the contrary. “The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool – just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” the department’s press office posted. Why believe what you can see with your own eyes when you can believe what the government is telling you?

The experts say Trump’s rush job was a recipe for failure at each step.

  • Step 1: Remove filters in Reflecting Pool because Obama put them in.
  • Step 2: Give your neighbor who runs “Greenwater Services” a $20 million no-bid contract to paint the pool.
  • Step 3: Personally inspect the work by driving your motorcade of ten heavy armored SUVs on its surface.
  • Step 4: Fill the pool with water from the Potomac River, the phosphates from which cause algae blooms.
  • Step 5: Freshly sealed pool and extreme heat, aggravated by the dark blue color, results in a super scum event. 
  • Step 6: Direct National Park Service to dump hydrogen peroxide into the pool which kills algae but also causes the paint to peel.
  • Step 7: Deploy US National Guard to stop people from taking photos of the swamp as a perfect metaphor for the administration. Put up a fence around the pool to keep people away.

The proper way to repair and update this national treasure is well known and has been known for years. But the plan is expensive and will take time. It includes completely replacing the pool’s concrete foundation with stone. The concrete has cracked as the bottom of the pool, built on swampland as is most of Washington, has settled. The plan would also contend with the pool’s ongoing water-loss issues, caused by the breaking of pipes also caused by the settling ground. Formal estimates on cost and time have not been released although the numbers $100 million and four years have been cited before by the National Park Service.

The landmark pool may now be dry and inaccessible on the Fourth of July.

Wait until Trump builds his arch.

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The Fourth of July

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It has become a tradition for me to write a series of blogs at the end of the Supreme Court term reviewing the major cases decided during the court year. I’m still working on this project, but it is not ready yet. Give me a few more days to digest the opinions the conservative supermajority dumped on the nation in the last few weeks. I find myself nearly overwhelmed by their blatant attempt to rewrite the Constitution and change our lives in ways I view with disgust and disappointment. I find it difficult to concentrate.

At times like these I like to think of better moments in the history of our great nation. We celebrate tomorrow our Independence Day, noting the date, actually July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress declared “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States….”

“The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epoch in the History of America,” Massachusetts delegate John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3. Adams, often prescient, vividly described the parades, “illuminations” and festivities he believed would be regular events, staged each year to note the occasion. We wound up celebrating the Fourth of July, the date of the signing of the final form of the declaration. But whatever the date the principal of the event was the delegates’ belief that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law.

Relax with your family. Celebrate your nation. Read something about our history. You can even watch the film of 1776, the Broadway musical based on that sizzling summer of 1776 in Philadelphia, when our nation was born. And reflect on what we are making of the legacy of the brave men who met and wrote the Declaration of Independence.

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The Fourth

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Declaration of Independence

I find myself still reeling from last week’s end of the term opinion dump by the Supreme Court, the conservative supermajority continuing its steady march back to the 19th century. Like last year’s disaster, this year will require a series of blogs assessing the damage. That will come on the other side of the Independence Day holiday.

For today I pass along two recommended references. The first, Professor Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College’s brilliant, as always, substack on the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. If you don’t already subscribe to Professor Richardson’s “Letters from an American” you should.

And second, the wonderful film of the wonderful Broadway Musical, “1776“.

Both remind me of our struggle to form “a more perfect union.” And how we must continue that struggle in the face of headwinds that at times like these seem insurmountable.

Happy Fourth of July.

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