February 15, 1815

On this day 250 years ago at the Octagon House in the District of Columbia, the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1815 was ratified by President James Madison.

Source: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=40225

This is the final post I plan for my blog On This Day 250 Years Ago in the Revolution. From 1773 (or actually 1770 with the Boston Massacre and the Battle of Golden Hill in New York), America was fighting with Great Britain to preserve our inalienable rights that eventually became the American Revolutionary War for Independence. Even after Britain recognized American Independence and made a temporary peace with the United States in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain continued to infringe on American rights and American sovereignty. Most American historians, including Ken Burns in his recent series on PBS, recognize the Ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as securing the Independence of the United States in the culmination of the Revolution. Thomas Jefferson certainly viewed the Election of 1800 as necessary for implementation of the Revolution or as a new bloodless revolution to secure American Liberty from a return to “monarchical” rule, and I have always been aligned with his view.

My blog is premised on the Revolutionary War with Britain beginning before the shots were fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775 and continuing after Yorktown in 1781 all the way through the War of 1812. But after the Treaty of Ghent and the staggering defeat of the British at the Battle of New Orleans, American Independence from Britain would never be questioned by anyone on either side of the Atlantic.

But in the most important sense the Revolution to secure American Liberty did not end in 1815 even though Britain was no longer the enemy. He is an anathema to Progressives today, but the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 in many ways expanded our democracy in a continuation of the Revolution. Certainly the Civil War was all about the preservation and expansion of American Rights and Lincoln eloquently invoked the promises of the Declaration of the Independence and the Constitution as justification for the war to preserve our Union. The Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution in 1868 did more to preserve American Liberty than anything since the ratification of the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction at least for a time made liberty real for African-Americans in the South. The Progressive movement of the 1890s and early 20th Century further advanced Liberty including by finally allowing women the Right to Vote with the 19th Amendment. World War II and the Cold War were existential fights to preserve Liberty in America and other nations from the totalitarian threats of Fascism and Communism. The Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 helped to at long last secure the inalienable rights of Black Americans, and the Equal Rights and Gay Rights movements followed for Women and LGBT people in America. And today in 2026 as I write this the American people are resisting a wannabe-king as he takes away our rights and tries to implement an authoritarian takeover of the United States. The “No Kings” rallies against Trump that I have been attending with many thousands of other Americans are very much a non-violent continuation of the American Revolution today.

When I want this to post in 2065 I will be 103 years old, or more likely I will not be around to post it. I write each entry of this blog as I come across events in the American Revolution that I want to commemorate (or at the last moment if I have not identified anything to write in advance). So I plan to schedule blogs to post in the future on the 250th anniversary of each date. Maybe someone will take this project from me when I get too old to continue. But at any rate, I hope Americans will remember our forebears fought to preserve and expand American Rights and that they will honor them by continuing the fight.