Independence Day

Today is the day, I suppose, where we think about the long sequence of events, both providential and auspicious, that went into the establishment of this American democracy. From the Boston tea party (which seems, in retrospect, more like a frat-boy prank) to the oft-overlooked Louisiana Purchase, this country is assembled from a million swirling currents, and they all run together now. The recipe is somewhat irrational: combine the Enlightenment, a small group of Founding Fathers with hearts of steel and minds built like British dreadnaughts, an economy teetering on the backs of slaves, add a dash of heavy-handed English government, and churn until revolution foments.

And it does us well today to remember the mixture of fortune and steely effort that brought us here. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was the son of a candle-maker, a low-born tradesman, yet he conquered the worlds of printing and science, and he charmed the French in a way no American has done since. This is significant because he talked the cash-strapped French into giving the colonies enormous loans of money and troops. He could conduct himself with ease in the rural setting of the colonies, or in high society London, or in Enlightenment France.

That was his greatest gift: his hell-bent confidence. Benjamin Franklin--and the other Founding Fathers--believed that they belonged. There was a place at the table for this ragtag bunch of gentlemen. They didn't merely stand opposed to England, they stood opposed to the idea of England, its sense of aristocratic pietas that demanded that rank and class mattered. The American experience said that men were not their titles, or their lands; they had a right to make their way in life.

And 364 days a year, we blow hot air about American exceptionalism and the greatness of our democracy, and it turns into little more than political posturing. But maybe just this one day we'll sing songs and wave flags, and that'll be ok.