Fabric Of The Union.
Fabric of the Union
Two-hundred thirty-five years ago on Monday, 56 men from the original 13 colonies affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence, notifying the world — but especially Great Britain — that these were now “the united States of America.”
History (and musical theater: “1776”) would never be the same — and maybe it's never exactly been what we thought it was.
United?
The fissures in the current U.S.A. were in evidence in the earliest moments of the new nation. By July 4, 1788, competing and opposing factions with regard to the ratification of the Constitution were trying to cancel out each other's independence celebrations. And that was just 12 years into the American experiment. And a civil war would follow fewer than four score years hence. And you thought the right/left divide of 2011 was something?
Yes, Americans still struggle to realize their ideas of a more perfect union, one whose imperfect beginnings allowed for people of color to be bought and sold, for women to be deprived of all manner of rights and for Native Americans to be dispossessed. But the promise of America, the one encapsulated in the declaration made 235 years ago, allows for the possibility of change.
All these years later, a person of color is president of the United States, the secretary of State is a woman as well as a former presidential candidate, and the field for next year's presidential election includes a woman and another man of color. Like their politics or not, that's progress.
Such advances take time, and they don't come without tremendous disagreement. For every person happy about, say, the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, another person will be unhappy with it and will work to elect government officials who would have voted differently. But in America, it is always up to the people to decide these things. The leaders follow us, and sometimes it takes us a while to decide what we want, and what is right.
For better or worse, that's the American way: The framework sketched out in the Declaration of Independence, and laid out in the U.S. Constitution, guarantees that our pendulum swings, and then swings again.
Is the nation in the middle of such a swing now?
Seventy-plus years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used government to pull the American economy and the American people out of a Depression. In those days, government was the solution, and his age gave birth to social programs that still serve as safety nets for vulnerable citizens.
Thirty-some years ago, President Ronald Reagan said government was the problem, not the solution, and became the champion of deregulation and a pared-back federal reach.
Today, their political and philosophical sons and daughters are battling out their legacies in courtrooms and in Congress. How it will turn out depends on the American people — if they care enough, if they are engaged enough, to take part in the battle in the voting booth, too. Take it from the men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor: Democracy is not a spectator sport. It cannot be left to other people.
President John F. Kennedy gave a speech in Independence Hall on July 4, 1962. He was speaking to a gathering of the nation's governors, and some of the context of the address dealt with the tension between state and federal government. But his words also bear witness to the central promise and challenge of this nation and its successive generations of Americans:
“Because our system is designed to encourage both differences and dissent, because its checks and balances are designed to preserve the rights of the individual and the locality against pre-eminent central authority, you and I, Governors, recognize how dependent we both are, one upon the other, for the successful operation of our unique and happy form of government.”
Happy?
“Our system and our freedom permit the legislative to be pitted against the executive, the state against the federal government, the city against the countryside, party against party, interest against interest, all in competition or contention one with another. Our task — your task in the statehouse and my task in the White House — is to weave from all these tangled threads a fabric of law and progress …”
Weaving from tangled threads a fabric of law and progress — that is the American people's task, too.
No matter our disagreements, that's something worth celebrating on the Fourth of July — and every other day.
Two-hundred thirty-five years ago on Monday, 56 men from the original 13 colonies affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence, notifying the world — but especially Great Britain — that these were now “the united States of America.”
History (and musical theater: “1776”) would never be the same — and maybe it's never exactly been what we thought it was.
United?
The fissures in the current U.S.A. were in evidence in the earliest moments of the new nation. By July 4, 1788, competing and opposing factions with regard to the ratification of the Constitution were trying to cancel out each other's independence celebrations. And that was just 12 years into the American experiment. And a civil war would follow fewer than four score years hence. And you thought the right/left divide of 2011 was something?
Yes, Americans still struggle to realize their ideas of a more perfect union, one whose imperfect beginnings allowed for people of color to be bought and sold, for women to be deprived of all manner of rights and for Native Americans to be dispossessed. But the promise of America, the one encapsulated in the declaration made 235 years ago, allows for the possibility of change.
All these years later, a person of color is president of the United States, the secretary of State is a woman as well as a former presidential candidate, and the field for next year's presidential election includes a woman and another man of color. Like their politics or not, that's progress.
Such advances take time, and they don't come without tremendous disagreement. For every person happy about, say, the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, another person will be unhappy with it and will work to elect government officials who would have voted differently. But in America, it is always up to the people to decide these things. The leaders follow us, and sometimes it takes us a while to decide what we want, and what is right.
For better or worse, that's the American way: The framework sketched out in the Declaration of Independence, and laid out in the U.S. Constitution, guarantees that our pendulum swings, and then swings again.
Is the nation in the middle of such a swing now?
Seventy-plus years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used government to pull the American economy and the American people out of a Depression. In those days, government was the solution, and his age gave birth to social programs that still serve as safety nets for vulnerable citizens.
Thirty-some years ago, President Ronald Reagan said government was the problem, not the solution, and became the champion of deregulation and a pared-back federal reach.
Today, their political and philosophical sons and daughters are battling out their legacies in courtrooms and in Congress. How it will turn out depends on the American people — if they care enough, if they are engaged enough, to take part in the battle in the voting booth, too. Take it from the men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor: Democracy is not a spectator sport. It cannot be left to other people.
President John F. Kennedy gave a speech in Independence Hall on July 4, 1962. He was speaking to a gathering of the nation's governors, and some of the context of the address dealt with the tension between state and federal government. But his words also bear witness to the central promise and challenge of this nation and its successive generations of Americans:
“Because our system is designed to encourage both differences and dissent, because its checks and balances are designed to preserve the rights of the individual and the locality against pre-eminent central authority, you and I, Governors, recognize how dependent we both are, one upon the other, for the successful operation of our unique and happy form of government.”
Happy?
“Our system and our freedom permit the legislative to be pitted against the executive, the state against the federal government, the city against the countryside, party against party, interest against interest, all in competition or contention one with another. Our task — your task in the statehouse and my task in the White House — is to weave from all these tangled threads a fabric of law and progress …”
Weaving from tangled threads a fabric of law and progress — that is the American people's task, too.
No matter our disagreements, that's something worth celebrating on the Fourth of July — and every other day.
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 3:13 PM
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