July 4- What Exactly are We Celebrating?

 

On July 4 of every year Americans gather to shoot fireworks, eat barbecue, listen to “patriotic” speeches and celebrate the birth of their country unaware that the union of our Founders was laid to rest at Appomattox Court House in 1865. The Founder’s union was altered through an act of violence, bloodshed and subjugation, and its stated purpose for existences in 1788, when the constitution was ratified, was dealt a death blow. In all reality, we are celebrating a country that no longer exists.

On July 2, 1776 the Continental Congress voted to declare independence from the English Crown. A committee of five men was selected to put an ordinance of secession into written form, and on July 4 of that year, the Congress voted to approve what would be known as the Declaration of Independence. Interestingly, and largely unknown, as Kevin Gutzman notes is the fact that Virginia had already declared its independence nearly two months earlier, on May 15, 1776.

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