The 4th of July needn’t make us mourn a unity we seem to have lost, but bolster us to rediscover the strength that got us this far.
By Donald Blair
The 4th of July has an All-American reputation as a communal day of cookouts, parades, and fireworks. We view the holiday with a touch of nostalgia for a time when we could all celebrate together with a sense of national unity and shared pride in our country. But its origins may have more in common with our modern fractured time than we think.
The Declaration of Independence was actually controversial within Colonial America. John Adams himself reckoned that only one-third of the population supported independence. Historian Thomas Slaughter from the University of Rochester estimates that no more than 45 per cent of colonists supported the war while it was happening.
There were Patriots and Loyalists at either end trying to win over those in the middle who were dissatisfied with British rule but wary of the high price of war. There is some odd comfort in knowing that our national origins reflect some of the same factionalism we see now. Our two major parties seem separated less by policy disagreements than by personal hatred.
Both sides see the opposition as not just intellectually wrong, but as morally reprehensible. The resolution of our current crisis will depend on the same dynamics that got us through our first Revolutionary crisis. What eventually led to the success of the United States was not the zealots on either side but those in the middle.
It was those in the middle that recognized the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation would not work. It was those in the middle that drove the more practical and thoughtful US Constitution. There is much to be criticized in the negotiations that allowed the perpetuation of slavery, the mistreatment of Native Americans, and other institutionalized inequalities. But there is also much to be admired in the self-correcting mechanisms that were built into our founding principles that give us a mechanism to redress those wrongs and get better. Because of that, our Republic will celebrate its 248th year.
This is remarkable when you see that most revolutions over the course of history failed or quickly petered out. In the 1700s, the French Revolution against the monarchy resulted in an Emperor. In 2011, the Egyptian Revolution for democratic reform resulted in a military-backed authoritarian government. The outcome of both the successful and unsuccessful revolutions was ultimately decided by what was forged from the middle.
The United States finds itself at a crossroads that has been a part of our historical cycles as well. The Civil War is the most dramatic example. But in 1911, Army troops were called out to patrol city streets besieged by vigilantes; and in the 1970s, the Vietnam War became a catalyst for mass protests and violent confrontations. We stood the test largely because of a middle-minded America that ultimately refused to give in to the extremes of the Left or the Right.
We need the middle now. They’ve been cowed into reluctant submission by forces that revel in instilling anger. So maybe it’s time to turn the anger back on them. The middle is potentially the most powerful force in our democracy. We need a middle that rewards governing over campaigning, that values efforts to solve problems more than efforts to perpetuate them for fundraising talking points. We need a force that doesn’t accept that our governmental and
institutional leaders should be no better than the rest of us but insist they should be among the best of us.
The 4th of July needn’t make us mourn a unity we seem to have lost, but bolster us to rediscover the strength that got us this far. Like the burst of a firework, our brilliance lights from the middle.
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(Donald Blair is a political commentator and the author of Confessions of A Racist: A View from the Middle Majority.)
