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by Pat Laster
I haven’t written anything to celebrate July 4 since
that year a Son of the Confederate Soldiers organization wrote to all church
music directors urging us not to use "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in our
services. Not that I “obeyed,” of
course. For we had different ideas about the hymn.
I decided that I needed a refresher course in
the nation’s history as regards the celebration of the birth of our country.
And perhaps you did, too. And though we now celebrate The Fourth, in 1776, it happened on The Second.
Hear John Adams—in a letter to Abigail Adams dated 3 July 1776:
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable
epoch in the history of America. I am
apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the
great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of
deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.
“It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with
shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of
this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”
Here’s Mary Antin, an immigrant, writing in The
Promised Land, 1912: “So at last I was going to America! Really, really going,
at last! The boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared! A million suns shone
out for every star. The winds rushed in from outer space, roaring in my ears,
‘America! America!’”
And James Baldwin, from Notes of a Native Son,
1955: “The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects
all other ties, any other history, and adopts the vesture of his adopted land.”
Louis D. Brandeis, Supreme Court justice, wrote in
“Whitney v. California” in 1927, “Those who won our independence by revolution
were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order
at the cost of liberty.”
A Revolutionary leader, Abraham Clark, is supposed to
have said in 1781, “We set out to oppose Tyranny in all its Strides, and I hope
we shall persevere.”
George M. Cohan, showman, said this to John McCabe in
1940: “From my earliest days I was profoundly impressed with the fact that I
had been born under the Stars and
Stripes, and that has had a great deal to do with everything I have written.
“If it
had not been for the glorious symbol of Independence, I might have fallen into
the habit of writing problem plays, or romantic drama, or questionable farce.
Yes, the American flag is in my heart, and it has done everything for me.”
The
poet E. E. Cummings wrote in his “Next to of course God,” these two lines:
“next to of course god America i/ Love you land of the pilgrims and so forth
oh.”
Charles
Dickens, English novelist said in American Notes, 1843: “There is no other
country on earth which in so short a time has accomplished so much.”
“I
name thee Old Glory,” William Driver said of the American flag as it was
hoisted to the masthead of his brig in 1831.
In a
Proclamation to the American people, 3 July 1976, President Gerald Ford said,
“Break out the flag, strike up the band, light up the sky.”
[These quotations were taken from The Morrow Book of Quotations in
American History, by Joseph R. Conlin, published in 1984, and were selected by
myself. Since the entire book is available to be read online, I eschewed
getting permission to reprint these.]
Happy Independence Day, 2013.
