Independence Day

Posted by Marc Hodak on July 3, 2008 under History | 2 Comments to Read

I have to take the day off tomorrow, so here are my early best wishes for a Happy 4th.

Having recently read 1776, I’m reminded how remote the situation of our Founding Fathers must seem to Americans today. The Declaration ends with the famous pledge by the signers of “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.” Today that sounds like the kind of campaign hyperbole spouted by presidential candidates when they’re concluding a stem winder.

Here is a trick question: which presidential candidate do you think would stand for freedom if they knew that losing the election meant the distinct possibility of death by public hanging? Which would do so if they knew that they had something like a ten percent chance of winning?

Answer: Neither. Not necessarily for lack of courage, but because neither candidate stands for freedom.

Up until July of 1776, members of the Continental Congress could hold out some hope for a negotiated settlement with the Crown, whereby they might get the King to see the errors of his ministers in provoking the colonies. The colonies had been in a state of rebellion for over a year by then. By June 1776, they were facing long odds behind an army that was barely being held together.

This was the point when the Founding Fathers decided to attack the King personally, publicly calling him a “tyrant.” This was the moment they chose to completely sever their bonds to England, and challenge the most powerful military on Earth. To every practical person alive that day, each signer of the Declaration had basically signed his death warrant.

And they weren’t doing it for better health care or teachers unions.

Tyler said,

Well, imagine there wouldn’t have been a declaration of independence. Imagine the conflict with the british parliament would have been resolved peacefully. What would north america look like today politically? Something like Canada? Was the british empire already on track to transform itself into some commonwealth of nations?

While I regard the founding of the United States as one of the defining turning points in modern history (as important as the french revolution 13 years later), perhaps a bloody rebellion itself was totally unnecessary.
M. Hodak said,

Counterfactuals are fun, but very difficult to assess. Americans are temperamentally much more aggressive than Canadians, so it’s hard to speculate if we would have turned out similar.

Bloody as our revolution was, I wouldn’t say it was anything like the Reign of Terror in France in aims, means, or outcome.