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Show fl&GRB&fltf ISSUES FORUM , The Revolution Enshrined i n-ffi ! C I7I.L , Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of 18 articles written for the nation's Bicentennial Bicen-tennial and exploring themes of the American Issues Forum. In this article, Allen Weinstein introduces the second quarter's quar-ter's series which will begin next week with an essay entitled, "The Changing Face of Labor." Courses by Newspaper News-paper was developed by the University of California Extension, Exten-sion, San Diego, and funded by a grant from (Jie National Endowment for the Humanities. Humani-ties. It is being run in cooperation with the Southeastern South-eastern Center for Continuing Education. Copyright c 1975 by the Regents of the University of California. By Allen Weinstein National anniversaries like the Fourth of July have always been special to Americans. Commentators even in the early decades of the Republic noted our compulsion to mark our "festivals of national purpose" with special observances. observ-ances. The founding fathers themselves them-selves ratified the revolutionary revolution-ary moment more casually. It was on July 2nd, not the 4th, that the Continental Congress formally adopted Richard Henry Hen-ry Lee's June 7th resolution "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." Although Congress adopted Jefferson's Declaration stating these facts on the hallowed Fourth, not until July 19th did it vote to inscribe the document on parchment, countless reproductions of the scene to the contrary. Nor was it even signed by delegates to the Continental Congress until August 2nd, with one of the "original" signers appending his name only in November. Doubtless he was waiting to examine more closely the betting odds on successful insurrection. Even the signers conveniently conven-iently revised their memories by the following year, when in the midst of the revolutionary revolution-ary crisis Congress falsified its own records to certify July '4th as the day it al! began. It seemed more important to the Revolutionary elite to create an impression of decisiveness and national purpose. We are hearing a similar call today to re-affirm the country's coun-try's essential unity of purpose during the Bicentennial period. per-iod. Not all Americans are persuaded. While the President Presi-dent spoke to thousands gathered at Lexington Green on the 200th anniversary of the "Minutemen's" struggle against ag-ainst British troops on that spot, additional thousands gathered nearby under the auspicies of the "People's Bicentennial," ostensibly to protest the official ceremonies and to condemn American policies at home and abroad. Such democratic celebrations, celebra-tions, now as in the earliest days of the Republic, have actually confirmed a broad measure of disunity over the Republic's policies and goals. Even during our initial Independence Inde-pendence Day observances, Federalists competed with Jeffersonians in boisterous "Fourth of July" orations. Throughout those years, political polit-ical passions ran high. Then and later, speakers turned independence anniversaries into occasions for partisan advantage while pleading for renewal of national "cohesion." "cohes-ion." The Semi-Centennial The country's first super celebration, analogous to the Centennial or Bicentennial, took place in 1826. It was apparent then that the United States had survived its grow-' ing pains. Signs of a healthy adolescence were visible in a booming cotton production in the South, a fledgling factory system opening its doors throughout the North, and intensified exploration leading to settlement of the Western territories. So harmonious had the country's politics become, once the War of 1812 ended threats from abroad, that both political parties were on the verge of disappearing. Happily, some of the country's coun-try's original leaders lingered on into this new era of economic boom and political harmony, venerable symbols of a revolutionary past, with their archaic knee britches and quaint 18th century landguage and manners. President John Quincy Adams Ad-ams invited these survivors, some of whom had signed the Declaration, to come to Washington Wash-ington for a solemn patriotic commemoration of the nation's nat-ion's birth. Many did, but among the absent although still living were Thomas Jefferson Jef-ferson and John Adams, once mortal political enemies and now reconciled although both on their death beds. "Virginia" and "Massachusetts" "Massa-chusetts" had become faithful correspondents again once the partisan battles of their presidential years receded in time. And in a coincidence deemed so extraordinary in that religious era, a "visible and palpable" sign of "Divine favor," Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826, Jefferson at noon and Adams a few hours later. Their dying recorded words, perhaps legendary, leg-endary, still seemed profoundly pro-foundly (if not divinely) appropriate to the occasion of their leave taking on , America's Ameri-ca's semi-centennial day. Jefferson Jef-ferson (to his doctor) "Is it the Fourth?" Answer: "It soon will be." Adams: Thomas Jefferson still survives." Festivals of Justification But such celebrations have historically served not only as reminders of our collective virtues but also as occasions for the expression of national anxieties. We have learned much from them and will continue to learn during the Bicentennial-about the nature na-ture of America's apprehensions apprehen-sions as well as its achievements. achieve-ments. Still, whether in 1826 of 1976, such celebrations serve as measurements of the country's self-image, ceremonies cere-monies of reaffirmation of our purposes "festivals of justification," justi-fication," in the historian Daniel Boorstin's words, which become all the more necessary when these purposes purpos-es seem unclear. Few nations have engaged in such unrelenting orgies of self-justification as our own. Independence Day ceremonies, ceremon-ies, John Adams pointed out, reaffirmed "the principal and feelings which contributed to produce the Revolution." In the view of men like Adams and Jefferson who had actually fought for freedom, Americans born into the new republic without having experienced the Revolution itself, needed constant reminders of the reasons for which their for-bearers for-bearers had struggled. Those Americans who express ex-press understandable amusement amuse-ment at the Bicentennial's commercial excesses often betray an ignorance of the seriousness with which revolutionary revolu-tionary countries --- whether whe-ther the United States, Frnace, the Soviet Union or China-treat China-treat their respective dramas of national transformation. Jefferson, for his part, was clear as to the underlying meaning of the Independence Day festivity he was too ill to attend. It signalled "the blessings and security of self-government..." It would open the eyes of the world "to the rights of man. ..(to) the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their back, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, let the annual return of this day (July 4th) forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them." Jefferson's defense of America's Am-erica's democratic, egalitarian mission contrasted painfully with the factual evidence of his own day: millions of blacks still enslaved throughout the South, America's women excluded ex-cluded from even rudimentary legal protection and personal opportunity, Indian nations like Georgia's Cherokees being be-ing pushed off their treaty lands by avaricious white settlers (only to be banished westward in the genocidal "Trail of Tears" a few years later by federal troops at President Andrew Jackson's orders), and a wealthy capitalist capital-ist aristocracy and an urban proletariat germinating in the North's factory towns. Reaffirming Our Faith Today as in 1876, when the N myths of a democratic com- ui munity clash with many of the ie realities of American life, the w avowal of our revolutionary gi aims at Fourth of July time can be understood more cleajly: li Writers and orators from tl President Jefferson to Presi- tl dent Ford are not fools nor n have they always been engag- f ed in calculated self-deception T or cynical exploitation of their s audiences. Rather, they have E tried to cope with an inherent r- tension in American history: .jv the effort to adhere to an older 4 j set of ideals while, at the same !j time, confronting a mobile , culture in pursuit of wealth If and power. j For many, our traditions Jl may appear noble but irrele- If vant. To celebrate national f? cohesion at such times, wheth- er in 1826 or now, is often to i perform a vital act of genera- j tional communion, to avow (if only rhetorically) a vision of 1 unity amidst social disorder. Affirming the possibility of 1 cohesion, even within a more r-" complex and fragmented soci- I ety than the one envisaged by B the Founding Fathers, was the H semi-centennial's central goal H in 1826, just as beginning the I process of reconciling post-Vietnam Americans has become the dream of our own era's super-celebration. The country will put the Bicentennial behind it soon enough. But despite our slim i chances for achieving genuine cohesion, we should not take lightly the medicinal virtues ( contained in the rhetorical j; snake-oil of Bicentennial rhet- j, oric. Our inherited values after all do continue to exert g influence over our national behavior, even in today's media-drenched and swiftly changing society. The four writers whose essays comprise this series demonstrate that essential truth, the ambiguous legacy of older American values: Robert Heilbroner in connection with the changing patterns of labor; Paul Samuelson for the economic econ-omic context of American actions; Walter LaFeber in relation to the United States's tortured efforts to deal with a rambunctious world; and Neil W Harris in studying our complex social and cultural patterns. Each writer in his own way j offers persuasive evidence to show how existing values have St had to adjust or transform 1' themselves in a new yet ever 0l unsettled system of beliefs. w' |