July 4th - Huzzah!
You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!
God bless our happy home. On this spectacular 4th of July, LYRC formally wishes America Happy Birthday! Sure, we’ve had our ups & downs, our disagreements, but we’ve never gone to bed angry – and that’s what has kept our relationship strong. It’s all about the love.
2 Comments:
I really prefer to celebrate the birth of our country as the date the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783.
As most of you know, the War for Independence started in April of 1775. Why this isn't considered the birth of the nation, as opposed to the last day of a convention where a bunch of politicians got together to push around some paper, I'll never know. We clearly broke at least a year before the DOI.
Still, the DOI made it official. Funny, but, like a teenager whining for more privileges, the colonies weren't really independent until they won it. The unofficial end of the War, and the actual end of hostilities occured in 1781 when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington (and the French).
So, 1775 was when we acted to be separate, 1781 was when it was pretty clear we were going to be, and 1783 was when it was official we were. Then, of course, there are the 6 years when the U.S. of A was a confederacy, under the Articles of Confederation, and then the actual start of the U.S.A run under the Constitution which started in 1789.
You can bitch and whine about a lot of ills in this country's history but the birth of the country definitely occurred between 1775 and 1789. 1776 is really, really arbitrary.
I don't have the info at hand but I'm also sure that the Continental Congress where the DOI was drafted didn't manage to finish the document or get all the signatures at that time. I think some of the signatures were acquired in August. Surely King George III didn't see anything until that fall. History is soooooooo messy.
Did you know that not even ONE of the colonists had a blog?
Isn’t is craptacular that few Americans celebrate Juneteenth? See, that burns my biscuits. 1776, however, makes sense. History ain’t so messy as all that. Sure, folks had a lot of fighting to do - and some serious victory to be won; but it’s the declaration that carries the day. T'aint nothing wrong with that.
Post a Comment
<< Home