701. How Americans Learned to Celebrate Independence

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. So as Independence Day approaches the Fourth of July, as we celebrate it, I think we know kind of what to expect, right? Now America 250 is going to be a bigger year, but when we think of Independence Day, there are some signature things we think about, right?

Maybe barbecues or outdoor grilling, you know, hot dogs and hamburgers, fireworks, of course. That's a big thing. You know, people wearing American flag t-shirts or sparklers and red, white and blue. We have an image in our head of what a Independence Day celebration is supposed to look like and has looked like, but I wonder, do you think that the founding fathers, especially those who were in the room and signing the declaration, do you think they had any idea what was going

to happen that we would celebrate Independence Day like we do today? And how did they celebrate it in the years right after the declaration was signed? Well, we're going to talk about that today. So John Adams, who was one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and was also one of the signers, he was there when it was signed, he predicted in a letter to his wife Abigail Adams that we would celebrate the Fourth of July for years to come through

parades, through, you know, re-readings of the declaration, through illuminations, which you can kind of think to mean fireworks, illumination, the light, bonfires. So he actually predicted something that's pretty close to how we celebrate it before. The only thing John Adams got wrong about the predictions of how Americans would celebrate the Fourth of July is the date he believed they would celebrate them on, because the declaration was actually signed on July 2nd, not July 4th.

And so John Adams assumed in his letter to Abigail that it would be July 2nd would be this day of parades and bonfires and celebrations. So he was so close, he was just two days off, but he wasn't that far off, right? And we look back to his predictions and what we do today, and those are pretty similar. I mean parades, of course, I know, because I live in Washington, D.C., and let me tell you, all the streets get closed down.

You can't go anywhere because of all the parades, you know, bonfires. Maybe if you live in California, you live near a beach, definitely. I know that there were summers that we did bonfires at the beach for Fourth of July and roasted hot dogs. And you know, of course, the illuminations, the fireworks, that is one of the key things that we do on the Fourth of July.

So it's really interesting to see how close he got, but how close was he right after the declaration signed? After the declaration of independence was signed, it became very important to the people to reread it every year as a reminder of what it stood for, of what the country stood for, of why they fought and of what was at stake, right? Because the American experiment, right, it's ongoing.

Can we live up to the ideals of our founders? Can we live up to the rules and requirements of the Constitution? Can we remain a free people? And so rereading the declaration every year, especially publicly, like in a public square, that was a reminder of what they were actually doing, right? What was this all about?

What was the point, you know, as the kids say, like, they don't want to lose the plot. They want to make sure that they remember why they even exist at all. And so public rereadings of the declaration became very common. Also church services, because at this point, there were different kinds of religions, but church is still a very important part of, of most people's lives. So you're going to have a lot of church gatherings, you're going to have church bells ringing,

you're going to have celebrations, you're going to have, you know, town gatherings. And so there were, it did start pretty early. It's not like we suddenly have this modern interpretation of the 4th of July. You know, maybe they weren't having the exact, they weren't eating the hot dogs from the store. It is a little different. But they were still doing these celebrations because it was important to them to remember

everything that they had gone through and why they had gone through it. And it was also to reinforce these beliefs, you know, back in different cultures where there aren't written, they didn't have like a language that they wrote with. Maybe they drew symbols and things like that, but where the primary way of passing down knowledge was through storytelling, which is again, very innate to all of us humans. We love to learn through storytelling, but it's powerful, right?

Rereading things or saying things out loud to people helps keep the story alive, helps keep the reason alive. And so the other reason for having these speeches or people rereading the declaration was to remind the younger generations what was going on because even for the ones who, you know, people who were alive at the time may have remembered the revolutionary war, it was very fresh in their mind, but their kids might not or the kids born after the revolution might not.

So it was also a way of passing down the lore, the history of America to the younger generation. For the July has always been something I've really been excited about and it wasn't even just, you know, the barbecues and the fireworks and things like that or the family gatherings. I always have just loved American history and I've always found it, no matter how, you know, short, we've fallen and sometimes we're not able to fully live up to the Constitution. If you look at other countries who have tried to model their Constitution after the United

States or other countries that even just have written constitutions, most have failed. The fact that we have prevailed now for 250 years, you know, we're not perfect all the time, but this is really impressive. That's that's unheard of, right? And so I think there's a lot of things to look to an American history to get excited about to to celebrate, but one thing that really bummed me out a few years ago is there

was a girl I didn't really know very well. She wasn't a friend, but she was an acquaintance and I don't like to get political or things like that with people I don't know super well, but we were sitting there and it was the day before the 4th of July and she was telling me that she felt guilty celebrating it because we should probably be ashamed of the country now like it's shameful what we're going through and it's shameful the kind of people we've become.

And in those situations, like I said, because it's such a hot topic, I kind of just smile and nod and be like, but I think I said something kind of quietly of, well, I really love celebrating it, but I didn't go into too much detail just because it it's a it's a sensitive topic. But what I want to bring up here is why do people suddenly feel like we shouldn't celebrate it all? And should they be allowed to say that?

Well, the first thing is we know that we love free speech, right? And free speech should be celebrated and you should be allowed to do it. But why are there people who, while people have parades that are celebrating the 4th of July, maybe have parades saying things like, oh, you know, you should be ashamed because the slavery existed in this country once upon a time. So how can we celebrate this or we haven't fully realized these principles?

So why do people do that? Let's talk about that a little bit. There are absolutely times throughout America's history where we have failed to live up to our own ideals and our own principles. You know, Native Americans, there's issues there, slavery, there's issues there. And these are absolute real things that did happen.

And for these people, you know, they think, how can we be celebrating a country whose government has fallen short so many times? And there are some good points to that. But is that the point of celebrating the 4th of July? Celebrating the 4th of July and celebrating the Declaration of Independence, that first, you know, big declaration that we are our own country, that isn't about whether or not we

have been perfect about something. It's what were those original ideals? What did it stand for? Listen, were the founding fathers, men of their era who were not willing to take a huge stand against slavery at the time because they were trying to incrementally make some changes? Absolutely.

That is a very real thing. But if you read letters from Thomas Jefferson, if you read letters, even journal entries and letters from George Washington, they understood that slavery was immoral. They understood that it was the antithesis of freedom. They understood that every man was born free and ought to have those rights to life, liberty, and property.

They were not perfect in the execution. That's absolutely true. So let's celebrate the spirit of the Declaration. Let's not celebrate the shortcomings. Let's say this is what we stood for. This is why we fought a revolution.

We weren't perfect then. But let's remember those things and try a little harder to be better the next year and the next year. So it's not about shortcomings. It's about what those ideals were. And I think that is something worth celebrating because the fact that we have all men are created

equal and our Declaration of Independence, our first document in this country during 1776, that is huge. That is something to be looked at in awe and say, wow, were they perfect? No, but man, that's crazy that we were even founded on such a revolutionary idea. It shouldn't be, but it was at the time. So I don't think that it's shameful to be celebrating the country if we have some periods

where we fall in short, of course we have, but it's those ideals that were put forth in the Declaration that make it worth celebrating and worth remembering. And to that end, we should be rereading the Declaration every year. We should be rereading even the Constitution every year and reminding ourselves, this is what we were supposed to be doing. Are we doing that?

How can we hold our government accountable to be even closer to the ideals of the Founding Fathers? These traditions are so important. The fireworks, the hot dogs, the hamburgers, those are symbols for a bigger thing, which is our country's traditions. We have these traditions just like your family has traditions.

They probably do certain things on birthday celebrations, right? Or maybe even some Easter celebrations or Christmas traditions. We have these traditions for holidays that kind of shape who we are as a country and the values that we center our principles around. And so I think these traditions are really important as stand-ins, again as symbols for the greater purpose, which is this belief in liberty and individual rights in our ability

and our capability of living in a free society without government always telling us what to do. We need a limited government. And so these traditions are really important on shaping who Americans are. We will leave it there for today, but as we're about to celebrate the 250th birthday of America, which is an even bigger Independence Day celebration than normal, let's really

think about these traditions. Let's think about why they are important. Let's think about why it is that we are celebrating the way we are celebrating and what it is that we are celebrating. What traditions, what values, what principles are we here to say yes, those are who we are as American people and we need to really honor them and celebrate them.

So all right, we will wrap it up there. So as always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast and until next time, I will talk to you later.