Every year on the 4th of July, I read the Declaration of Independence as a reminder of where we’ve been, how far we have to go and the tools we have available to create what a later document would describe as “a more perfect union.”
From the beginning, we’ve failed to live up to our stated ideals. We said “all men are created equal,” but didn’t really mean it. Doubling down, we extended “certain unalienable rights” only to men.
Then, just as the Declaration goes into its final pitch, there’s a line that describes Native Americans as “the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
The document that began the work of building our country was incomplete, exclusionary. At best, a work in progress. At worst, a codification of prejudice.
(Side note: I want to know which horny founding father was responsible for introducing the phrase “manly firmness” into one of our country’s original documents. John Hancock seems the obvious culprit here, but how much you want to bet it was Thomas Jefferson? Seriously, how were we expecting to be taken seriously with a dick joke in our manifesto?)
Many of us believe we are at one of our country’s lowest points and lack a cause for celebration. At the risk of further twisting the knife, we haven’t lacked for low points: the Alien and Sedition Acts, slavery, the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow laws and the 13th amendment, Japanese internment camps, government-sponsored redlining that created an ongoing racial wealth gap, the AIDS crisis, not to mention the persistent stones in our shoes brought on by a seemingly permanent surveillance state, paying women 82 cents for every dollar a man earns and allowing Rob Schneider to still be a thing.
Reading the Declaration of Independence can seem an indictment of our country’s founding. Yet the same document that creates a separate and unequal state allows for the rectification of the same, a way forward in times when the power of the people seems to be at its lowest. It is a reminder that we have been here before.
To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
“The consent of the governed…alter or abolish it…most likely to affect their Safety…” These seem to be words that track with our current situation. A suggestion that changes can and should be made to part of our government, not necessarily the whole of it.
…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…
We could start with the Electoral College, but your mileage may vary on this point.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good…
Sounds familiar. And then there’s this…
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
Sure, this referred exclusively to white Europeans when it was written, but applications can be found anew.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…
This one seems somewhat TBD but, you know.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
Gross, but still.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world…
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
Is it a stretch to apply this to declarations of “the enemy of the American people?” Maybe. Maybe not.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…
“Send tweet.”
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
We can read the above and not necessarily think it should follow that “these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States” or we should “be Absolved from all Allegiance“ or that “all political connection between them and the State…is and ought to be totally dissolved.”
We can and should, however, read the Declaration as an endorsement of protest – yes, even and especially ones that inconvenience, upset and discomfort. It is dissent itself. Taking to the streets to petition for redress is literally our country’s birthright. It is how many love it so much that they refuse to leave it.
From there, we organize to march, we march to vote, we vote to protect.
Among the fireworks, the hot dogs and the beers is the belief that hope exists for a better tomorrow. We aren’t done yet.
Let there be no greater reminder of this than a holiday reimagined and celebrated as ongoing work to protect the vulnerable, stand for equality and create true freedom for all.
