What are We Celebrating on July 4?

On July 4, Americans will have a day of celebration with cookouts, parades, and fireworks.  Yet how many really understand just what we are celebrating?  Why is there a Pride Month but not an American Patriotism Month? What was actually the purpose of the Declaration of Independence?  What specifically did it state?  Why do our unalienable freedoms that were enshrined in the Constitution no longer exist?  What can Americans do to help restore our founding principles?

Purpose of Declaration of Independence

On July 2, 1776 the Continental Congress voted to declare independence from the English Crown. A committee of five men was selected to write the ordinance of secession and, on July 4, 1776, the Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence that merely established separation of the colonies from England.  Already in May Virginia had declared its independence and was in the process of creating its own Constitution.  Maryland declared independence as well.

The Declaration was not a revolutionary document.  It did not establish new rights but simply re-affirmed the old rights that all Englishmen had under law.  The fights of the colonials were already codified into English law.  The Crown and Parliament were ignoring those rights and, through government force, were actually curtailing them.  The Colonials were only fighting to keep their rights for themselves and their descendants.  England was the revolutionary, not the Colonials.  George Mason noted this, “We claim nothing but the liberty and privileges of Englishmen in the same degree, as if we had continued among our brethren in Great Britain.”

English Law and Its Influence on U.S. Constitution

Let’s look at the history of English law.  In the Middle Ages England was moving away from centralization of government toward limited government and more personal freedom.

In 1100 the Charter of Liberties forced restrictions on the power of King Henry I of England.  The English barons rejected absolute authority and sought to preserve traditional decentralized “government.” Just over one hundred years later in 1215, the English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta.  This was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government were not above the law.  It established law as a power in itself.  The “Great Charter,” as the Magna Carta was known in English, placed the king on the same level as the nobles. The charter also resisted the trend toward centralization of government.

As is usual with ruthless rulers, more powerful English monarchs simply ignored the Magna Charta but several of its provisions became the basis of English common law, including the writ of habeas corpus.  This is Latin for “show me the body.”  It meant that the accused person had to appear before the court.

Our founders wrote this fundamental right into the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Section 9, that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment. This fundamental right has been suspended in the case of most of those accused as January 6^th insurrectionists.  This constitutes political persecution.

When civil war erupted in England in the 1600s, the Parliament asserted its authority to drive English law and policy.  In 1688, they expelled King James II and forced the new monarch, William of Orange, to sign the English Bill of Rights.  This document condemned James II for violating the rights of Englishmen – called “laws and liberties of this kingdom” by the Parliament — and placed restrictions on the powers of the monarch.

English Bill of Rights

It was essentially the English Bill of Rights that Jefferson incorporated into writing the Declaration. When Jefferson listed the various rights that King George III had violated,  he was following this same English tradition put in place by the English Parliament.  Jefferson adapted these abuses to rights to American circumstances. This formed the conservative American tradition.

George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Resolves asserted that “all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights…namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and maintaining happiness and safety.”

Jefferson borrowed Mason’s text but shortened it in his original draft of the Declaration: to “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” By “equal,” Jefferson meant that all citizens or freeholders are, as Mason wrote, born “equally free and independent” under the law.  We see this earlier in England when the barons asserted their legal equality with the Charter of Liberties and King Henry I in 1100 and the Magna Carta and King John in 1215.

Jefferson’s philosophy was not new.  He simply shortened Mason’s language – which he borrowed from John Locke’s 1689 publication Two Treatises on Civil Government – to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was understood that Jefferson viewed that “happiness” as property and safety.

“Free and Independent States”

After establishing in the Declaration’s preamble the basis for the existence of government, and then listing how the Crown had violated these rights, the Declaration states,

That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

The colonies will become “Free and Independent States” which will no longer be subject to the authority of the mother country but will be equal to the State of Great Britain.  In a nutshell, the 13 colonies were now 13 States that were free from England and free to form their own governments.  They were not bound together as a nation but were “unified” solely for the purpose of defending themselves against invasion by the British.  Jefferson used the term “united States,” or the States united – always with a small “u.”  The united colonies became “FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.”

Sole Purpose of Declaration of Independence

We can now see the historical lie that July 4 was the birth of “The United States,” or that a “great nation” was birthed on July 4, 1776.  The Declaration of Independence created nothing but merely established the secession of 13 colonies from Great Britain with each forming its own “nation.”

13 Nations, Not a Singular “Nation”

The free and independent states ultimately formed a “union” under the Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution.  Future States would come into the union the same as the original 13. Neither the Articles of Confederation nor the U.S. Constitution of 1787 changed the relationship between the States. The Constitution ratified in 1788 would delegate only specific enumerated powers, dealing primarily with defense, foreign commerce and regulating trade among the several States.   The states insisted that all other powers were to be “reserved to the States respectively.”  This was acknowledged in what would become the 10th Amendment of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The 13 States created their own nations and went forward to become a plural “union” not a singular “nation” under the Constitution.

The United States vs. the united States

Prior to the defeat of the South by Lincoln’s invading armies in the War Between the States, the people of the united States would refer to the union in the plural, as in “The united States were” or “The united States are” rather than “The United States was” or “The United States is.”  This changed only after Lincoln’s bloody crusade to undo the Founder’s Constitution.

1865:  Annullment of the Constitution

With the South’s defeat in 1865 the Constitution was thus effectively annulled. The right as recognized in the Declaration of Independence to “alter,” “abolish,” or “throw off” a government that was no longer desired was crushed under heel and the precedent was set establishing that the government in DC is now, by virtue of the mere notion that “might makes right,” “Supreme” in all things. It was no longer relegated to only the 17 specific powers delegated under Article I.  Today, the States refrain from challenging Federal authority and view themselves not as “Free and Independent States” united for mutual protection, but “provinces” or “colonies” of an all-powerful parent government — the very thing that July 4^th celebrates for dissolving from England. This “parent” government resides in Washington, D.C. rather than in London.

On July 4 of every year Americans gather to shoot fireworks, eat barbecue, listen to “patriotic” speeches and celebrate the birth of their country, unaware that the union of our Founders was laid to rest at Appomattox Court House in 1865. The Founder’s union was altered through an act of violence, bloodshed and subjugation, and its stated purpose for existences in 1788, when the constitution was ratified, was dealt a death blow.  That government and country are non-existant.

Gettysburg Address Signaled “A New Nation” with All Powerful, Centralized Government

In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln stated that ‘a new nation” had been conceived in liberty.  He was claiming that the United States had been created as one centralized nation rather than a union of 13 independent states as our Founders intended.   Lincoln’s promise that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” signled that America as founded with limited government and states rights had been swept away and a new, all powerful, centralized government had taken its place.  That is the government under which we now live.

What can Americans do?

There are millions of people in America who want to stop the woke agenda and restore our Founding Principles.  But it takes more than complaining and sitting passively in meetings.   We have to take an active role for freedom just as the Founding generation did.

Let’s start by celebrating, not just one day, but the entire month of July as “American Patriotism Month.”  The left hates that.  Take the time to learn more about our founding, laws, culture, and history.

During July

• Celebrate July as “American Patriotism Month”
• Gather often with family and friends to celebrate our freedom
• Organize gatherings to study the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers
• Have BBQs and dance colonial folk dances and sing colonial songs
• Make some of the simple colonial musical instruments and play those at the parties.
• Let the children help to make the simple colonial instruments and play them – drums, fifes, etc.
• Have children look for photos of colonial dress and create their own versions for dress up
• For loads of great commentaries about Southern history, music, food, and culture, check out abbevilleinstitute.org

The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily the views of the Abbeville Institute.

Carole Hornsby Haynes

Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. is an independent historian and Southerner who taught American and Southern history at the secondary and college levels. She is a national education policy analyst and legislative adviser. A classically trained pianist and organist, she loves the many genres of American music. She’s especially proud that nearly all American music is Southern in origin and identity.

View all posts