Independence Day comes and goes every year, but it’s never quite clear, now 250 years later, what exactly it is that most people are celebrating. Some tell us that it’s “America’s birthday,” while others say it’s the anniversary of “freedom.” Some people don’t really have much of an opinion about it at all. For many, it’s just a day to celebrate “America” and enjoy a day off from work.
For Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the commemoration of Independence Day was about the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionaries breaking free from the domination of the British state. To use the words of the Declaration itself, the day is about breaking “the political bands” that tie one polity to another. Jefferson was particularly emphatic about this, and 40 years after the first Independence Day, he was still supporting potential new secession movements in America.
John Adams, in spite of his regression into more conservative politics during the 1790s, was nonetheless very much a revolutionary during the 1770s. For him, the independence movement in 1776 was truly an act of revolution, of rebellion, and of refusing to be ruled by others. He fully supported an annual celebratory day to commemorate exactly that.
Many modern commentators, however, are far less sure about the reasons for celebration. Many have even turned Independence Day into a celebration of the US government and the political status quo, complete with displays of the military might of the central government.
Others say the day is about celebrating equality and the need for the government to ensure that everyone is “equal.” Yet what Jefferson meant by “equality” was something quite different from what it means in modern American discourse. In many cases, Americans can’t even.
tell the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the counterrevolutionary Constitution of 1787. The two are quite distinct, and they work at cross-purposes: the Declaration was a celebration of political disunity and rebellion. The constitution that came later was designed to impose a new, centralized, and powerful government on the free and independent states.
In this issue of The Misesian, we bring the focus back to the Americans who brought about what Murray Rothbard has called a truly libertarian revolution against the power of states and imperialism.
The articles in this issue help us to understand the true meaning of both the Declaration of Independence and the revolutionary movement that produced it.
Also included here are two new book reviews from David Gordon, both of which help bring into focus the many ways that the Declaration and the Revolution can be—and are—misinterpreted and misunderstood.
Indeed, many pundits and scholars today try to use the Declaration to justify and legitimize modern political movements that invariably call for a strong and active government. Yet the most direct and plain interpretation of the Declaration is also the most accurate. It was not a proclamation of a new America under a single state. It was, rather, a declaration of disobedience and of political fragmentation. It’s no wonder that we hear so little about this from politicians, pundits, judges, and university professors. If we were to celebrate the real ideals of the Declaration of Independence, our idea of America would be very different, and average Americans would be much closer to casting off the tax-funded parasite class. Jefferson certainly would have approved.
