Hello Anyone who finds this blog: I have never blogged before but want to make a contribution to the Semiquincentennial of our Nation. WordPress does not seem to think that “Semiquincentennial” is a word and I had to look it up. I remember the celebration and commemoration of the Bicentennial well; that word was catchy and understood by all. In contrast, “Semiquincentennial” just sounds pretentious. So consider this my part in celebrating and commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the United States of America.

Independence Day for far too many Americans is simply a day off work to celebrate the fourth day of the seventh month of the year with sale prices and fireworks. And unfortunately a few Americans today think the founding of our Nation is a source of shame and nothing to celebrate because our Founding Fathers and their successors benefited from slavery and the theft of land from the Native Americans who lived here first. It is critical that we recognize these “original sins” in American history, and that our Nation still has much work to do to correct the legacy of these sins that persist today, but I disagree with the contention that Americans should not celebrate with pride the founding of our Nation.

There is no more noble basis for the founding of a nation than the creed of the United States of America:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Our Founding Fathers were not visionary enough to see it, but thankfully it is self-evident to most Americans today that all people are created equal and that it is not only men who are endowed with unalienable Rights. We can and should celebrate this creed and resubscribe to it every year, really every day, and most especially as we approach a quarter millennium of American Independence. But the purpose of this blog is show that American Independence was not simply an event that was achieved on one day in July 1776 but instead a process that began in 1765 when nine colonies formed the Stamp Act Congress, or in 1770 with the Battle of Golden Hill in New York and the Boston Massacre, or in 1772 with the burning of the Gaspee in Rhode Island. By July 4, 1776 our Independence had been achieved but it wasn’t actually secured until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, or one could argue, the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, or even as I contend, the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. American Independence was imagined, fought for, and realized over the 50-year period from 1765 to 1815. This blog takes up that story in 1773 — 250 years ago today.

When I originally conceived the idea for this blog I intended to start it in March of this year to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia in March 1773 of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Dabney Carr and other members of the Virginia House of Burgesses to draft a resolution calling on other British colonies in North America to join Virginia in forming committees of correspondence to coordinate efforts to protect their rights. But I did not get my act together to start my blog then so I am starting it now.