Fourth of July...

motordavid · #1 07-03-2011, 05:28 PM

And, a very well done brief history, of the USA, post-Independence Declaration, by Ben Bova, a fave author/writer of mine.
Good Fourth of July to all the USA readers.
GL, mD

Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of the United States of America.

Although John Hancock and the other delegates in Philadelphia actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776, the signing was not announced to the public until the 4th, and “the Glorious Fourth of July” has been marked as our nation’s birthday ever since.

A motley crew of wealthy planters and minor businessmen (including one printer) dared to declare their independence from King George III’s Great Britain, knowing that they were challenging the most powerful empire in the world. The USA was born in revolution, a revolution that continues to this day.

The first part of our revolutionary heritage was a long and difficult war against the British Empire. It took George Washington several years to learn how to be a general but at last in 1783 — with considerable help from France — Washington forced the British to surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. That was not the end of the American Revolution, it was merely the beginning.

The next major step was the framing of the Constitution, in 1787. This document created a strong federal union, replacing the nearly-powerless government that had existed under the Articles of Confederation. Significantly, the preamble to the Constitution begins, “We the people of the United States …” Up to that moment in history, the U.S. was a loosely bound confederation of 13 separate states, rather than a single unified nation.

Many of the delegates to the constitutional convention (held again in Philadelphia) objected to a strong federal government, fearing that it would turn into a powerful tyranny. Even today, that fear remains.

The year 1800 saw a second revolution in America. The Federalist Party, which had ruled the government since George Washington was unanimously elected president in 1789, was defeated at the polls by Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party. For the first time in history, power was changed in a major nation without bloodshed, without a shot being fired.

Contrast the election of 1800 in the U.S. with the bloodbath of the French Revolution and its inevitable descent into the autocracy of Napoleon.

Still, many British observers confidently expected the fledgling United States would collapse. In the War of 1812, they came close to reconquering their wayward colonies. But as Francis Scott Key wrote in “The Star Spangled Banner,” our flag remained over the ramparts of embattled Fort McHenry, in Baltimore harbor. And it continues to wave over us today.

The American democracy, however, was based on white males of property. Landless men, men of color and all women were not allowed to vote.

In 1828 cantankerous Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in 1814, was elected president. He extended the voting franchise to all white males, regardless of their wealth — or lack thereof.

By 1860 the issue of slavery threatened to tear this nation apart. Civil War raged, killing nearly 215,000 in combat. Only World War II cost us more battle deaths.

The southern states of the Confederacy fought to enlarge the territory in which slavery might be legally established. The northern states of the Union fought to prevent those southern states from seceding. Slavery was the key issue, and once President Abraham Lincoln found a general who and would win battles — Ulysses S. Grant — the Union won the war. Slavery was abolished and the states of the Confederacy returned to the USA.

It took another hundred years, though, before African Americans gained their full rights. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s was another chapter in the continuing revolution that is the United States of America.

Before that, in the early years of the 20th century, women marched for their right to vote. In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution at last enfranchised women.

From an elite group of planters and businessmen (and one printer), the ongoing American revolution has seen the rights of citizenship extended to every man and woman born on this soil.

And the revolution continues. Today we face contentious issues of illegal immigration, soaring national debt, threats from terrorism and the spread of nuclear weaponry. We will surmount them all, just as we have surmounted the problems of the past.

Happy birthday, America. I’m proud of you.

BEN BOVA: July 3, 2011 ... Happy birthday, USA » Naples Daily News