Thoughts on America’s 250th Birthday

Major milestones in a country’s history tend to awaken interest in the great events of the past. Commemorations vary from the local parade and the backyard picnic to major national happenings with concerts and fireworks, special programs and souvenirs. I pulled out of my bookcase this week, Time Magazine’s Bicentennial edition with a young Thomas Jefferson on the cover. In honor of the occasion, Time decided to set its various editors and writers the task of covering their usual subjects as if they were living in 1776. So, not only was there full reportage of the Continental Congress’s debates, but also descriptions of the suffering of the delegates in the summer heat of Independence Hall as they worked the final language of the Declaration. There were sidebars with vignettes of some of the prominent leaders of that era as they appeared up to that year. One can read about the most recent books and music of that time and with a 20^th century perspective, Time looked into what the women were thinking and doing as well as devoting a page to the Black population of the time, mostly enslaved, but pushing for an extension of those high - minded ideals to their situation as well. In 1776, everything was uncertain. The Revolutionary War had already begun but its outcome was much in doubt. As the delegates inscribed their names under the gaudy signature of the chair John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin remarked, “We all need to hang together or surely we all will hang separately.” A little more than a decade later, the war had ended in victory for the new United States and another convention had taken place creating a constitution for the fledging country. When asked whether the convention had created a republic or a monarchy, old Ben Franklin replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.” A rather chilling thought, perhaps in 2026.

The country managed to make it to its first milestone event, the 1826 Jubilee, marking 50 years of U.S. independence. The day dawned with bells ringing and parades marching through the streets. In spite of the atmosphere of jubilation on making it this far, the celebration was marred with the late breaking news of the passing of two of the founding fathers on the same day: Thomas Jefferson had died that morning and later in day, people learned of the death of John Adams.

“We actually have first‑person voices from that day. John Adams wrote his final letter on the morning of July 4, 1826 — a quiet, almost whispered reflection on the Jubilee. Other surviving signers wrote letters of gratitude and warning, hoping the nation would guard the ideals of 1776. And in the days that followed, Senator Thomas Hart Benton described the ‘mysterious reverence’ that swept the country when Americans learned that Adams and Jefferson had died within hours of each other. Celebrations turned into vigils. Bells that had rung in joy tolled again in mourning. It was as if the founders themselves had chosen the moment to hand the covenant of freedom to the next generation.” Independence Day became a meditation on legacy, what it means to inherit a dream rather than witness its birth.

The Centennial celebration in 1876 was a very different kind of event. With the invention of photography, we can get a much clearer sense of the confident image of the newly industrialized nation. The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia that year was one of the first World’s Fairs with some 35 nations participating and about 200 buildings erected in Fairmount Park. America showed off its latest inventions and agricultural achievements. The hand and the torch of the Statue of Liberty was one of the exciting attractions. It was used as a fundraiser for the pedestal that would support the massive statue once the other portions arrived from France. This was truly a joyous celebration as the nation came together a decade after the Civil War with promises of a future of abundance. Yet for many, particularly in the former Confederacy, the war continued and suppression of the former slaves marked the end of Reconstruction.

One doesn’t hear a great deal about the Sesquicentennial in 1926. I think of that era as the Roaring Twenties, a time for dancing the Charleston, going to speakeasies and defying Prohibition. But it was also a time of conservatism with President Calvin Coolidge in the White House. “Silent Cal” was not known for his oratory, but one quote that he is remembered for was “The business of America is business.” In 1926, the big businessmen were riding high until three years later the market crashed and the world entered the Great Depression.

Nonetheless, Philadelphia once again hosted a great exhibition at the urging of John Wanamaker of department store fame. It was not nearly as successful as its predecessor. Ending in November in bankruptcy, it had attracted many fewer attendees than the centennial event. Its big attraction was an 80-foot replica of the Liberty Bell surrounded and lit up by some 26,000 electric light bulbs. Commerce Secretary and future President Herbert Hoover did attend the event.

Coolidge gave an address to mark the sesquicentennrial in Washington in which he urged Americans to hold fast to constitutional principles amid the anxieties of modern life: labor unrest, nativism (including the resurgence of the Klan), Prohibition, and the aftershocks of the first world war. He reminded the nation that freedom requires discipline, restraint, and shared ideals. It was a sober message from a sober President.

If we don’t remember these earlier celebrations, most of us do recall the bicentennial in 1976. I was a newly minted rabbi at the time and serving in Dallas, TX, at the end of my first year. During the Bicentennial, I recall marching with an interfaith clergy group in Dallas. Someone suggested we sing as we walked. After a long pause, a pastor cheerfully proposed ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’ It was a moment that captured the Bicentennial perfectly: sincere, patriotic, and not quite as interfaith as we hoped. But we kept marching together — which, in its own way, was the point. Sometimes you just need to learn how to walk together, even when we have not yet learned how to sing together.

The Bicentennial was a year-long celebration. The Postal Service had a field day with all sorts of commemorative stamps issued, including four souvenir sheets with famous artworks including Washington Crossing the Delaware and Cornwallis’ surrender, divided up into five stamps each of different denominations. The celebrations included a regatta of Tall Ships, incredible fireworks displays, reenactments of the events of the founding of the nation. We had just gone through the national trauma of Vietnam followed shortly by the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation. The Bicentennial was seen as a moment of national therapy: joyful, nostalgic, and tinged with doubt.

Fifty years have gone by too quickly and some of us have grown old. Here we are this weekend marking an occasion whose name is too long to get our mouths around, the semiquincentennial of these United States, the 250^th anniversary of our independence. It is hard for many of us to feel jubilation on this milestone anniversary. We keep thinking of Franklin’s words, “a republic, if you can keep it.” It is no secret that our country is polarized, divided into factions, threatened by white supremacists and by plutocrats who can’t make enough money that they have to steal from the poorest among us, and a government filled with incompetence and corruption. It is hard to celebrate at such a time. It is still unclear whether the values on which this country was established will ultimately prevail. Some commentators in recent weeks do see glimmers of hope and one can only pray that they are right.

Nonetheless, we are a resilient people and the parades will go on, the fireworks will light up the sky, and families will gather in their backyards for the annual holiday barbecue sending smoke signals into the air. Even in disagreement Americans seek connection. For many of us, the holiday itself becomes a quiet act of hope.

As Jews, we live in history. After more than 3000 years we are still going forth from Egypt and that collective memory underlies our concern for the stranger, our support of the disenfranchised, and our outreach to those in need in our community. In every generation of this country we continue to sign on to the Declaration of Independence. “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.” This is the covenant we undertook as a nation 250 years ago and those values remain unalienable. They should still be the guiding principles of our nation. We cannot escape our history. Every year we commemorate those events and remember the founding fathers of the nation. We should examine our nation and recognize where we have fallen short and work to create a more perfect union, not only for wealthy, white, men, but for all people.

Liberty’s torch that lit up the centennial celebration still glows in New York harbor proclaiming this land as a refuge for those tempest-tost who yearn to be free. The liberty bell at the sesquicentennial still rings out freedom all over this land. These are among the precious values to which we covenanted 250 years ago, promising them to all people and for which we continue to fight and to vote to maintain and to restore our reputation in the world.

On this Independence Day let us pray for a new birth of freedom so that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth. Let us celebrate this weekend and then go forth to complete the unfinished work which those who have fought and died for this country have “thus far so nobly advanced.”