150 Years Ago: July 4 At Vicksburg And Gettysburg

Many momentous events in American history have occurred on July 4. The first announcement of the Declaration of Independence was just one of many.

July 4, 1826: former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on that day;
July 4, 1831: former President James Madison died;
July 4, 1863: Confederate forces surrendered at Vicksburg, ending a long siege and putting the Union in command of the entire length of the Mississippi River, cutting the Confederacy in half and isolating the West;
July 4, 1863: Confederate forces at Gettysburg under command of Robert E. Lee begin a long retreat that was to end nearly two years later at Appomattox.

July 4, 1943: Task Group 36.1 moves into position for assault on New Georgia, Solomons Islands the following day, beginning in earnest the long retreat of Japanese forces that was to end two years later in Tokyo Bay.

Today's New York Times prints a thoughtful essay by Paul Krugman, entitled e pluribus unum. I recommend the essay, though I have a slightly different take on some of Krugman's thoughts.

"Is America in 2013," Krugman asks, "in any meaningful sense, the same country that declared independence in 1776?" Krugman's answer is "yes."

My answer is "maybe."

Krugman emphasizes on the one hand how different the country is now from 1776:
"America in 1776," he points out,  "was a rural land, mainly composed of small farmers and, in the South, somewhat bigger farmers with slaves. And the free population consisted of, well, WASPs: almost all came from northwestern Europe, 65 percent came from Britain, and 98 percent were Protestants."

Ethnically, he emphasizes, "we are...very different from the founders. Only a minority of today’s Americans are descended from the WASPs and slaves of 1776. The rest are the descendants of successive waves of immigration: first from Ireland and Germany, then from Southern and Eastern Europe, now from Latin America and Asia. We’re no longer an Anglo-Saxon nation; we’re only around half-Protestant; and we’re increasingly nonwhite."

I am one of that diminishing minority of Americans descended from the WASPS of 1776. All of my ancestors were here by then.

Before I buy into Krugman's assurances that "we are still the same country that declared independence all those years ago," I feel compelled to point out that from the beginning of our history, Americans have had vastly different visions of what the country is and should be.

From 1789 until 1865, there was a clear conflict between the vision of 1776 ("all men are created equal") and the vision of the Constitutional Convention, which facilitated slavery and other serious constraints on liberty. Even so, the Constitution gave lip service to "form a more perfect union" and "secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity."

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address rescued the vision of 1776 from obscurity. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments went far toward incorporating that vision as an integral element of the Constitution.

A good thing to remember in this Sesquicentennial year of America's Civil War.

We remain a Democracy. Securing the blessings of liberty is still up to us.