“[July fourth] ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
"The United States is a divided mess as Democrats have encouraged tribalism in their efforts to gain power, splitting us apart. Patriotism is at a low point. Fox reported most voters think America’s best days are a thing of the past.
"Rubbish. When America turned four score and seven, Americans were slaughtering one another at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. America became great again by the time its centennial arrived.
"The deterioration and abandonment of Manhattan in the late 1960s and early 1970s gave way to the tall ships arriving in New York Harbor to celebrate the bicentennial.
"The nation was 130 when George M. Cohan wrote You’re A Grand Old Flag.*
. . ."The secret is that deep inside, Americans love their country because of the God-given rights it respects and the opportunities that respect provides.
"Looking back and considering the odds that the American Revolution would deliver on the Declaration of Independence, people should ask, who could have predicted this? Who could have had the prescience and the foresight to say that in 247 years, the day of the declaration would bring Americans together, no matter how much they disagreed with and even hated one another?
"John Adams.
"America’s second president and the father of its sixth envisioned the celebrations we hold today. OK, he got the date wrong. He thought it would be July 2, the day Congress ratified the declaration and not two days later when the declaration was read to the people. I’ll tell you what, YOU make a prediction for 2270 and get the exact date right. That’s 247 years from now. I’ll get back to you when I am 316 years old.
"Adams made the prediction in a letter to his wife, Abigail, in a letter on July 3, 1776, about the declaration his friend Thomas Jefferson wrote (as Ben Franklin said, if you want something done, get a Virginian to do it) and Congress finally adopted.
"Adams wrote, “Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Events . . . . We might before this Hour, have formed Alliances with foreign States.” . . . More...
* It is heartbreaking to see so many black singers in this video, knowing their freedom was not yet whole; to be completed only decades in the future. But praiseworthy to know that in their future would come such as Colin Powell, Winsome Sears, Thomas Sowell, Martin Luther King, Condoleezza Rice, Dr. Ben Carson, Justices Clarence Thomas and Thurgood Marshall, and many, many others. TD






