Category Archives: US History

Memory and Monuments at the U.S. Capitol

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One of the things I did during a recent trip to Washington, DC, was visit the U.S. Capitol. I’ve never been in the building, and went on a tour through most of it with some family. One thing I hadn’t ever heard of was the National Statuary Hall Collection, which displays 100 statues – 2 representing each state in the union – in several of the rooms in the building. Originally confined to the Statuary Hall, some statues now stand in the visitor center, rotunda, and other wings and halls of the building. Each of these statues was created and donated by a state, chosen by its legislature to represent it in the Capitol.

Looking through the list of statues is an interesting exercise to do. There are many people of renown and many who are rather obscure even to fans or scholars of American history. For every Samuel Adams, there’s an Edmund Kirby Smith. There’s a bit of diversity in types of figures – mostly politicians but some activists and inventors – but there’s also a sizable list of war heroes responsible for untold misery on the frontier, like Andrew Jackson.

The first thing that caught my eye upon entering the Capitol Visitor’s Center’s Emancipation Hall was that several statues of indigenous leaders flanked the lines for tours. Kamehameha I, resplendent in gold and the heaviest statue in the collection, represents Hawai’i. 17th Century Pueblo leader Po’pay represents New Mexico and is the oldest figure among the collection. Sakakawea, Washakie, and Sarah Winnemucca also stand in Emancipation Hall. (Sequoyah and Will Rogers bring the indigenous to seven percent of the 100 statues in the collection. Impressive and unexpected).

There are six presidents currently in the collection, from Washington to Jackson to Reagan. There are also a number of Vice Presidents, like John C. Calhoun and Hannibal Hamlin, as well as presidential hopefuls from William Jennings Bryan to my own home state’s Barry Goldwater, the newest statue. Of the hundred statues, nine are women, among them several suffragettes and activists.

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Some tourists – presumably Arizonans – posing by Barry Goldwater. In the National Statuary Hall.

As any historian might guess, the Civil War era features prominently in the collection, and that’s the demographic that I want to talk about here.

There are two dozen Civil War figures among the hundred statues, and if you add such antebellum big names as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, and a couple of lesser known Reconstruction names, the specter of the Civil War makes a huge mark on the National Statuary Hall Collection. What’s interesting – albeit not surprising – is just how many Confederate fighters have monuments in the U.S. Capitol.

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Jefferson Davis, who worked in this building as a U.S. Senator until he resigned and became the President of the Confederate States of America.

Despite the fact that there were twenty-three Union states and eleven in the Confederacy, there are roughly a dozen statues representing each side in the collection. Included among the secessionists are none other than Jefferson Davis and Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the President and Vice President of the Confederate States of America, represent Mississippi and Georgia, respectively.

Remember that the states choose which two statues represent them in the collection. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia all sent a Confederate to Capitol Hill – several of whom had resigned from positions as U.S. Senators and Congressmen to join the Confederacy.

Mississippi is the only one with two Confederates representing it (James Zachariah George, as well as Davis). Alabama had two until former member of the U.S. and C.S.A. Congress Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry was replaced by Helen Keller in 2009 (Confederate general Joseph Wheeler remains). In addition to Confederate Zebulon Vance, North Carolina’s other statue is Charles Brantley Aycock, a Gilded Age/Progressive Era politician who was a champion of white supremacy and famously said, upon being nominated governor, “When we say that the negro is unfit to rule we carry it one step further and convey the correct idea when we declare that he is unfit to vote. To do this we must disfranchise the negro.”

Of the twenty-two statues in the collection from states that once formed the Confederacy, eleven are of men who fought against the United States of America. While half of these statues are secessionists, just a quarter of the statues representing the states which once made up the Union forces are from the same time period. Among them, however, are leaders like Hannibal Hamlin and Free Soilers and founding Republicans who not only fought to preserve the Union but to rid it of slavery.

Frederick Douglass. On the side of the pedestal is a quote regarding emancipation in the West Indies:

Frederick Douglass. On the side of the pedestal is a quote regarding emancipation in the West Indies: “If there is no struggle there is no progress.”

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that the 100 statues in the collection feature zero black people. Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass both have statues in the Capitol – both installed way back in 2013, and there are busts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sojourner Truth in the building, but no state has chosen to represent itself with a black person in the collection. But 11% of the collection once fought the United States in the name of slavery. Go figure.

What do we do with a collection of statues that memorializes so many men who once tried to leave the union? I’m not necessarily for getting rid of monuments completely. While I’m all for taking down the Confederate flag, less a historical artifact and more a symbol of white supremacy and hate, it’s less clear what should be done when Robert E. Lee is literally put on a pedestal in the same room as Samuel Adams or Roger Sherman.

When it comes to monuments in general, I find myself agreeing with Ta-Nehisi Coates, who tweeted that “the fact that white supremacists were lionized for so long is also history.” And indeed, many of the statues in the collection were first donated in the early 20th Century, just decades after Reconstruction was cut short and in the midst of the White Supremacist Democrats’ Solid South era.

But the statues continue to stand, shoulder to shoulder with historical figures who struggled for things like liberty and rights and not white supremacy and slavery. What’s more, while the U.S. Capitol is part-museum, there is only brief discussion over who the actual figures are and why they are there. The tour guide when I went (who was awesome despite her relatively recent employment there) explained statues correlating to states where her guests were from, and briefly referred to Davis and Stephens’ statues in the light of recent debate over Confederate flags and other paraphernalia.

But, just as Colin McEnroe says about the name of Yale’s (John C.) Calhoun College, “It’s not called Calhoun College So Let’s Talk About That.  It’s called Calhoun College, and it’s an easy feat to spend four years at Yale without ever having one those “teachable moments” about the background of the name… For three of my four years [at Yale], my roommate was an African-American man, Ken Jennings. He tells me the Calhoun name was a topic of discussion, if not a towering issue at the time. He’s not surprised I never noticed. ‘A lot of this kind of thing is below the radar if you’re not of African descent.'”

The fact of the matter is, the dozen rebels standing in the Capitol weren’t even put there by the Capitol. They were sent by Southern Democrat state legislatures in the early 1900s – that is to say, White supremacist state legislatures – and they were sent to memorialize great men of their states. This was no history lesson on racism. We can make it one by changing the plaque to signify these men’s real actions. To cite another Coates tweet, this time regarding what we should do with monuments like Stone Mountain: “Keep it. Put a big-ass inscription near it saying ‘These Men Fought For An Empire Of Slavery.'” Or, better yet, these state legislators can commission a new statue to represent them in the Capitol, and move these old ones into a museum or state park – with proper and honest signage. After a century of these Confederates standing on pedestals, I think it’s time for something new.

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Coates on Reparations

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The latest issue of The Atlantic features an important piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates on the issue of reparations for the U.S.’s racist history. It went live on Thursday to a lot of hubbub, but I wanted to dedicate a short post to tell you all to read the whole thing in full.

Coates uses housing as his framework for viewing America’s history, focusing on the long plunder of the 20th century. He spends much of the rest of the article arguing for reparations by showing how the repercussions of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration continue to punish black people. He also criticizes efforts to help the disadvantaged without taking race into account.

Coates also wrote here about tracing his line of thinking from opposing reparations four years ago. It includes links to several interesting pieces, all factors in his thought process. Coates also penned this short footnote to the article, highlighting why it is an important issue to tackle. Both are worth perusing if you’re interested.

In response, Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote this piece about education’s role in inequality and the (lack of) potential it has for being the channel through which we can attain a more equitable future. She brings numbers to the game, for those who like them, from a recent economic policy paper. Summarizing the findings, she states: “No matter what black college grads do, they are more sensitive than non-blacks to every negative macro labor market trend. They are more likely to be unemployed, underemployed, and hold low quality jobs even when they have STEM degrees.” She closes by arguing that “[w]hen we allow education to be sold as a fix for wealth inequality, we set a public good up to fail and black folks that do everything “right” to take the blame when it goes “wrong”.”

Alyssa Rosenberg also wrote this piece reflecting on how culture would have to change in order for such reparations to occur. She sheds some light on American media and how much attention has been paid to slavery and racism through what we watch. There’s also an interesting piece on the recent Caribbean effort to gain reparations from European countries for 400 years of slavery and colonization, and this piece outlining ways to actually see reparations through.

(If you know of other good pieces on Coates’ article, leave them in the comments.)

Only Nixon, Only Reagan – International Treaties and the Presidency

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A lot of people have been lamenting the US Senate’s failure on Wednesday to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by a vote of 61-38 (treaties need 67 votes to be ratified), and rightly so. There is virtually no reason not to ratify the treaty, and many GOP senators even went back on promises at the last minute by voting no. It’s really terrible that the United States is so unwilling to ratify international conventions, many of which are great treaties, on the absurd fear of losing all American sovereignty (or whatever it is they’ve convinced themselves).

But the fact is, we shouldn’t be surprised. The Unites States is the only country other than Somalia that hasn’t ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And we’re in the minority of non-ratifiers for a host of other conventions and treaties, from landmine bans to climate change protocols to international justice. The next time the U.S. signs onto anything like this, it will be because a Republican President wants to.

Sometimes people look at me with a bit of skepticism on that point, but it’s true. In an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China way, only a Republican president could twist the arms of enough GOP senators to vote alongside Dems, who for the most part already support such measures. The only reason the U.S. ever signed onto the Genocide Convention was because Ronald Reagan accidentally visited a Nazi cemetery (and didn’t visit any concentration camps) on a trip to Germany. To solve the controversy, he pushed for the Genocide Convention’s passage and voila. That is almost the only route for America to sign anything.

So we just need the next GOP President to fuck up on an issue, I guess.

Enforcing Arizona’s Progressive Constitution

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Yesterday I wrote about 2/3 of a panel that I saw the Arizona Historical Society concerning the state’s constitution and its place in the progressive movement. It was interesting to hear about how groundbreaking Arizona’s founding document was and how involved labor and the progressive movement were in constructing that document, but it wasn’t entirely convincing since Arizona is so reactionary now. Arizona, after all, is the home to a slew of seemingly disastrous legislative ideas and hosts some of the most conservative state officials in the country.

The third speaker at Wednesday’s panel was Paul Bender, a law professor at ASU, who concentrated on Arizona’s State Supreme Court and explained how it had allowed – or took part in – the gradual crumbling of the state’s relatively progressive constitution. He broke his lecture into three ways in which the Court has treated the constitution: stripping it down, protecting it, and ignoring it altogether.

Direct Democracy

Bender argued that the Arizona Supreme Court was uncomfortable with the amount of direct democracy inherent in the constitution, and therefore allowed the state’s government to circumvent some of the obstacles that direct democracy created. The initiative process in the constitution allows the general public to circumvent the legislature in the lawmaking process, creating laws by popular ballot. This inherently implies that the legislature is beholden to what the people decide, however there were a number of instances in which the legislature repealed laws passed by initiative. When the issue was brought before the judicial branch, judges said they saw no issue with legislators opposing popular initiatives.

In addition, Bender explained, state legislation is not supposed to go into effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, allowing time for the public to gather signatures for an opposing referendum if so desired. There is a provision that allows legislation to be enacted immediately during emergency situations, with 2/3 of the legislature’s approval. Often times, the legislature invokes an emergency without the grounds to do so, and when this is brought up to the courts, they deny review on the grounds that it is too political an issue.

And so we see instances in which the legislature pushes back against the control that the constitution grants the public over governance. But beyond this, we also see the judiciary stepping aside and allowing it to happen despite clear breaches of the law.

The Right to File Suit for Damages

The state of Arizona’s constitution specifically enumerates the right to sue for damages, which might seem bizarre to many. It’s as much a product of the times as the rest of the constitution – hearkening to labor’s involvement and the fear of major corporations corrupting the system. Indeed, there were some occasions of the legislation trying to limit the right to file suit through statues of limitations or restrictions on types of cases – all of which have been ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. It’s easy to see why: the judges are preserving common law precedence. Men and women trained in the ways of law are working to preserve the law as it is. This doesn’t ring of hypocrisy when compared to the relatively foreign idea of the populace creating laws on their own. Where the courts were uncomfortable with direct democracy, they were more than comfortable with civil suits – and so they protected the notion of a right to sue.

Individual Rights

The U.S. Bill of Rights specifies rights that the federal government cannot abridge. Historically, it did not apply to state governments until the Supreme Court began to implement a more activist reading of the document. It is for this reason that many states have almost identical rights included in their own state constitutions. Arizona is no different, except that the rights listed are more broad that the Bill of Rights. Take, for example, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And compare it to the Arizona constitution’s Article II, Sections 5 and 6:

Section 5. The right of petition, and of the people peaceably to assemble for the common good, shall never be abridged.

Section 6. Every person may freely speak, write, and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right.

The key difference is that the former specifies that one’s rights are protected from Congress, but makes no mention of state and local governments as well as private businesses and citizens. The latter simple states that everyone enjoys these rights – it implies that no one may abridge them. According to Bender, the Arizona Supreme Court has sometimes used to these provisions to protect people’s rights, but often defers to the more restrained precedence of the Supreme Court of the United States.

During the campaign to recall Governor Evan Mecham in 1987, campaign volunteers were prohibited from collecting signatures at some shopping malls – in Fiesta Mall Venture v. Mecham Recall Committee the state Appeals Court cited the U.S. Bill of Rights and upheld the decision, and the Supreme Court denied review. Similarly, in the case of Morton Berger, the state Supreme Court upheld his 200 year minimum sentencing for possession of child pornography, arguing that it was bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedence instead of looking at the state constitution’s 8th amendment equivalent, Article 2, Section 15.

These are just some of the examples provided at the forum. It seems that the state’s judges have frequently ignored the progressive and protective provisions of the state’s constitution and instead either allow the legislature to be unaccountable or defer to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings. It is unfortunate to see the opportunity to defend civil liberties pass by because judges choose to forget that the state’s founding document protects them. But of course, judges in Arizona can be recalled and must pass retention votes every cycle – and several Republican lawmakers have threatened to do away with the merit-based selection system. While it is important to hold judges accountable as well, some of these rulings raise the question of whether or not judges should be elected and whether or not they are serving in the interests of the state’s constitution and the people who are protected by it – the public.

Arizona’s Progressive Constitution – 100 Years Ago

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Last night, I attended a forum at the Arizona Historical Society on the state’s constitution. The panel at the forum was made up of a history professor (who taught the first university class I ever took!), a law professor, and a lawyer. I wanted to paraphrase some of what was discussed, as well as reflect a bit.

Arizona on the verge of statehood in 1911.

At the forum, historian Phillip VanderMeer touched on the historical context of Arizona’s constitutional convention in 1910. State governments had shifted from a strong legislature to increasingly balanced branches of government, and at the time of Arizona’s statehood, progressive ideas were finding their way into states’ founding constitutions, revised constitutions, and amendments. At the turn of the century, Arizona’s economy was deeply influenced by railroad and mining companies, and the workers in these companies struggled to achieve rights. It was at the constitutional convention that organized labor brought ideas including an eight-hour workday, an elected state mine inspector, the prohibition of blacklists of labor leaders, and a ban on child labor – all of which made it into the constitution, along with broad progressive ideas such as initiative, referendum, recall, and direct primaries.

Paul Eckstein, a civil lawyer here in Arizona, spoke about the actual debates and influences on the constitutional convention in 1910. He explained the nature of Arizona’s divided demographics – the territorial legislature was predominantly Democrat, but the territorial governor (appointed by the President of the U.S.) was almost always Republican. Across the border, New Mexico was predominantly Republican, and so both states were admitted at the same time in the name of balance. Eckstein pointed to Arizona’s constitution’s progressiveness relative to our sister state’s founding document as well as contemporary models of statehood across the West and Midwest. He listed a number of things New Mexico’s constitution did not have, that Arizona’s did have (remember, this is in 1912, and both constitutions went into effect almost simultaneously):

  • Initiative
  • Popular Referendum
  • 2 year terms for elected officials
  • Advisory popular vote for the U.S. Senate
  • Direct primaries
  • Public campaign contribution provisions
  • State anti-trust laws
  • Progressive income tax

Some of these are clearly at the forefront of the progressive movement at the turn of the century. Arizona was talking about campaign finance, direct election of Senators, and a progressive income tax before the federal government had made any headway on these issues. Women gained suffrage in 1912, before the 19th Amendment was passed, and prohibition in 1914, five years before the 18th Amendment. President Taft opposed the right to recall judges, leading the territory to remove the provision in order to gain statehood – only to reinstate it almost immediately.

Progressive ideals, especially the idea that the government should be held accountable to the public, is clear in Arizona’s constitution. Two year terms for elected office and the ability to recall elected officials combine for a strong opportunity to keep lawmakers on tight reins. In addition, the executive branch in Arizona was very weak – he was among over a dozen elected officials in the executive and had relatively few appointment powers. The people refused to allow the legislature to run rampant without the support of the general populace.

While some Arizonans today are unfortunately supportive of the more restrictive pieces of legislation put forth in the legislature, the real problem is that the constitution is no longer recognized for what it is supposed to do – lawmakers are not answering to the public and the three branches are not utilizing checks and balances. One of the main tenets of the constitution – to hold government accountable to the public – isn’t happening anymore. Our legislators are not being scrutinized as much as they should – even in light of the recent recall of Russell Pearce.

Update: The sequel of this post, examining how the state’s courts have treated the constitution, can be found here.

Civil Rights in Mad Men and Beyond

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The only black character that has been on Mad Men for more than two episodes is Carla, the Draper housekeeper. That might change this season.

If you didn’t see the season premiere of Mad Men this week, you should know one thing: racism and civil rights have intruded upon Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The show has referenced racism a few times, with Paul and Sheila going to the South to register voters, but it has never been a prominent theme like women’s role in the workplace has. It seems, however, that the fifth season could feature race quite a bit, especially if the office hires a person of color. As Tanner Colby points out, most seasons have included a major historical event (Kennedy’s election, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Kennedy’s assassination), and if this season spans about two years it could include Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

In this first episode of the season, race is treated as a problem that nobody wants to fix.  The opening scene of the premiere features a few executives at Young & Rubicam water bomb a Civil Rights protest going on outside their office,* which gets them in the papers. From there, the partners at SCDP decide to take the opportunity to rub salt on Y&R’s wounds by placing an ad in the paper declaring themselves “an equal-opportunity employer.” The boys at Y&R fire back, sending a resume and an African artifact through the door while a number of black applicants sit in the lobby.

While the premiere spends a lot of time showing how SCDP employees struggle with their home lives (with two new children, two new homes, and a new wife), the issue of race is tossed back and forth between SCDP and Y&R throughout the episode, with each agency trying to stick the other with the Civil Rights problem.

During the time in which Mad Men is set, the Civil Rights movement was often treated in the same way.  Politically, both Democrats and Republicans voted against civil rights reforms in Congress, despite Presidents of both parties putting forth piecemeal plans for reform.  Kennedy denounced the Freedom Riders for provoking violence and criticized SNCC for inciting harassment as well.  It would take James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi and Bull Connor’s crackdown in Birmingham to force his hand.

The biggest victories for blacks, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, arguably only came about because Johnson realized that black votes were important. By and large, the rights of America’s blacks were hot potato’d until politicians realized that black votes, not black people, were something to attract and protect.  One of the boys at Y&R shouted for the protesters to get a job, then pranked SCDP into accepting resumes – neither agency actually wanted to address the problem, but in the end one had to. Most politicians during the time didn’t want to deal with the “problem” of civil rights, but were forced to. I’m definitely not an expert on civil rights history, but I think this was a recurring theme until the movement grew enough to demand attention.

* Fun fact: Young & Rubicam was actually the first ad agency to hire a black adman, Roy Eaton, and that was in 1955.

70 Years Since Executive Order 9066

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Real democracy is not hereditary. It is a way of living.

— Student government page, 1944 Hunt High School yearbook, Minidoka Relocation Center

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the establishment of military zones. Angus Johnston reminded me of this anniversary this afternoon, and I thought I’d jump in on marking one of the more somber occasions in American history first with some overview and then with a look into more local history.

Map of internment camps

Executive Order 9066 authorized military leaders to establish military areas and to exclude civilians from those areas. With these powers, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt began instituting curfews directed at Japanese-Americans in Military Area No. 1 – all of California and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona (Japanese-Americans in Hawaii, interestingly, did not face relocation or internment). Throughout March of that year, DeWitt issued several proclamations that increasingly restricted the rights of Japanese-Americans, culminating in the Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, which included the mandatory evacuation and detention of Japanese-Americans. Almost simultaneously, Congress passed a law making violation of Executive Order 9066 a misdemeanor.

Over the next few months, approximately 112,000 people involuntarily left their homes and were interned in camps across America. 2/3 of them were American citizens. None of them was ever charged with treason or disloyalty, although over a hundred were sent to prison for challenging the internment itself. Most lost all of their belongings and livelihood, and only those still alive in 1988 received any compensation from the government.

The federal government’s actions were challenged several times: the curfews were challenged (and upheld) in Hirabayashi v. United States and the constitutionality of the order itself was challenged (and also upheld) in the more famous Korematsu v. United States. Neither of these decisions has yet to be overturned. On the same day as the Korematsu decision, the Supreme Court also ruled, in Ex parte Endo, that the government could not continue to detain people that it recognized as loyal, but it also left loyalty to be determined by the government itself.

Military Area No. 1 bisected Phoenix

While the demarcation of Military Zone No. 1 encompassed California, it cut through the other states. In Arizona, and likely Washington and Oregon, the line zig-zagged through many cities. If you’re a native of the Phoenix area, you’ll recognize the roads on the map to the right, which I got from the Arizona Historical Society. The line ran along Grand Avenue, Van Buren, Mill Avenue, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. If you lived southwest of this line, you were forcibly evacuated to relocation centers (usually in Poston or on the Gila River Indian Reservation). The arbitrary line decided whether or not some families had to endure the trying ordeal of relocation and internment.

When the war first began, Japanese-Americans were kicked out of the military due to suspicions of sabotage. The prohibition wasn’t lifted until 1943, and the draft was reinstated in 1944 while many still lived in internment camps. Across the country, many Japanese-Americans protested the contradiction of living in camps due to their disloyalty but being drafted to defend the country. In the Poston Relocation Center 100 men resisted the draft and were prosecuted by the government. A sympathetic judge decided that their punishment should be a 1 cent fine, since living in the camps was punishment enough.

The United States has a history marked with good and bad deeds. The internment of Japanese-Americans is one of the darkest events in modern American history. It’s important to be aware of this history, and to acknowledge just how much damage hatred and racism can do. It’s important to remember that 70 years ago, a hundred thousand civilians were rounded up because of their heritage.

Drug War Turns 40

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So, last week was the fortieth anniversary of the infamous War on Drugs. The internet was abuzz with people talking about all sorts of aspects of how much of a failure it’s been. Instead of giving anything anecdotal or analytical, I figured I’d just share one of the most effective infographics I’ve seen on it, via Colorlines:

Why is July 4th Important?

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On our way to the 4th of July party yesterday, a friend-of-a-friend was explaining to our driver why the 4th of July was important.  The driver was trying to figure out why we celebrated a day that we signed a paper on not the day the the Revolutionary War ended.  A few hours later I saw a friend’s facebook status explaining that we didn’t become an independent nation until years later.  So, why is July 4th, 1776 so important?

Yes, the Revolutionary War didn’t end until late 1781 with the Battle of Yorktown.  Correct, the Constitution (the law of the land) was not ratified until 1787.  True, George Washington didn’t take office until 1789.  But on July 4th, 1776 we made a statement that meant more than just “we’re independent.”  Even though it would be a decade before our country had a real government and decades still before this government could stand up on its own, 1776 was the birth of our nation in a totally different sense.

The Declaration of Independence isn’t like any other out there.  Many declarations simply cite that one group of people no longer wish to be under the rule of another and wish to separate and be, well, independent.  But our Declaration didn’t say the people in the thirteen colonies were claiming independence from Britain.

More than that, our declaration states that when any government mistreats its people, that it is the right (and duty) of the governed to fix or change that government.  Only after making this bold statement does the declaration go into why the colonists sought separation from England by listing grievances “to a candid world.”  Maybe it’s the freedom-loving side of me or the historian side, even the human rights side, but I’m pretty sure our declaration brought about a sea change in the relationship between the government and the governed and I think it is great that we can celebrate that – it’s not just the literal independence from a foreign ruler, which didn’t take place for another five years.  It’s the celebration of a new idea for the world.  I’d light a few fireworks for that.