The Birth of a Republic...A Remembrance

The Birth of a Republic....
A Remembrance

The “Birth Certificate” for the United States was written by Thomas Jefferson, and July 4, 1776 became the official date of the birth of our Republic. Without the shedding of blood there is no birth ~~ it was no different for this Republic. The bloody war with England culminated in the birth of a Child of Liberty.

“Fourscore and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

Pulsating in the hearts and minds of all people is the concept of freedom ~~ ideals of a personal liberty. Jefferson eloquently penned this addendum, The Declaration of Independence, to the birth certificate. It remains as this nation’s most cherished symbol of liberty.

It might be said in a crude analogy that America was “immaculately conceived” by the ethereal concept of liberty as its “Father,” and England as its “mother.” Like all children, maturity comes in ways both similar and different than parents. Yet there remains always a familial resemblance to the parents. This child, America, embodied similitudes of both “mother” and “Father” in its struggle to mature. As we wonder of our own children, what will they be, their legacy, so we collectively wonder of our own Republic.

Once Dr. Alexander Graham Bell and a friend observed a hot air balloon break the gravitational pull of the earth and rise from a field in France. Drifting over some trees, the balloon descended into a field where it was attacked by workmen with pitchforks. “Now what good was all that?”, the friend asked Dr. Bell, who replied: “What good is any newborn baby?”

“I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced with the sky on laughter and silver wings….” J G Magee

The newborn baby, America, has now soared to full maturity.

But what is this Republic all about today? Descriptions vary. Some may depict it as a nation of junkies, drunk on oil from the vines of Sodom in the fields of Gomorrah. Others characterize its culture of consumerism, the aphrodisiac of entitlement. Some even suggest that our pervading pursuit of wealth turns us into a herd of demon-possessed swine, rushing en masse over the abyss of debt. Others see the evaporation of jobs, NAFTA ~~ the New Age version of English Colonialism ~~ as a creation of a perpetual welfare underclass. And yes, Oh, so much more…

Following the lead of mother and Father, many see this Republic in a more “creative” way, attempting to replicate its ideals of freedom to enslaved peoples of this world… birthing, as it were, yet more children of liberty.

Lincoln at Gettysburg saw this larger picture which I hope we can also grasp, and again galvanize our disparate liberties into a more cohesive and nationalized whole:

“… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ~~ and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
To date no nation on this planet has successfully existed into perpetuity. It may be just a dream, but it is my dream that we can leave this legacy of freedom to our generations:

“… that men may rise on stepping stones
of their dead selves to higher things.” Tennyson In Memoriam


Happy Birthday America
July 4, 2008



Bud
June 26, 2008