Representation

Some thoughts on the Fourth

I sincerely apologise for having to resend yesterday’s column. I do read each column at least three times but sometimes the eyes simply miss garbled terms. An occasional ‘to’ rather than ‘go’ is not worth resending but whole phrases definitely are. Without the ability to edit something already out there, oy vey, I must fill your box. But, you deserve the right version.

The Fourth of July finds us, as I alluded to yesterday, in a bit more muddled these days than most years. Britain is at the polls today; I have to wonder what percentage of voters will actually register their endorsement or their disgust (it’s all relative, of course) with one of the options to run their government. Mercifully, once they know, the whole thing will shift to that new sucker’s—I mean person’s—shoulders within hours after a visit with the King (that part still sounds odd, doesn’t it?).

France conducts its mandatory second round of voting this coming weekend. It’s a far less expensive way to spend run a country when campaigns are short and sweetish (I hardly think Macron considered the outcome of the first round as ‘sweet’ when his party placed third but these are the risks of the game). But, campaigning is a less vital part of other nations’s economies than our own where campaigns, ‘op research’, and polling compose an industry. Should the National Rally retain its dominance in this round, France would embark as pretty different policies as will Britain should Rishi Sunak’s Tories suffer the drubbing projected by pundits.

We still have another four months before our views as a collective citizenry make a decision about the next four years. Contrary to what we think much of the time about our selves being decisive! bold! and being other adjectives, we actually are pretty deliberate in choosing elected officials since the bloody campaigns run for months, if not years. I am not saying I think we get a better outcome with mandated shorter periods but we definitely give the candidates—all of the candidates—a long time to spout their positions, make mistakes, attack each other, and the like. I wish I could believe this gives us a better result but am far from certain it does.

Sadly, we focus too much on only the single presidential vote every fourth year without focusing on the representation it conveys. Our vote translates into a power we give to someone else to represent us whether in a big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue, a bigger building up Pennsylvania on Capitol Hill, or in our state and local facilities.

We actually vote for that federal representation at a minimum every other year if we so choose. In truth, Americans bore easily of everything so it’s rare we have any election that attracts a majority of the eligible voters to register support for anything. In our system, the negative of ‘ignoring the vote’ is at least as common as casting a ballot in support. Occasionally that is not the case but over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, apathy might have won more elections than any other representative concept.

All of which takes us to the sacred importance of today. Red-headed Tom from Monticello penned, then published a radical document on 4 July 1776 about the importance of representation. Notice how often the concept appears in the list of complaints justifying independence.

“In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton”

Look also at how we react to the concentration of power that a king amasses. So many of Tom’s complaints, endorsed unanimously by the affixed list of co-signers, relate to the decisions by a single person ruling the nation rather than taking into consideration popular opinion.

Tom’s words still reverberate today. Some see them as a preparation for returning the nation to a place where only a single interpretation should fit each and every one of us and the challenges we face. Others see Tom’s words as a metaphoric license to a broad, encompassing nation responsible to those who choose to vote—and even those who decide not to vote but are still citizens who fit into that inalienable rights category. A host of other views for the future fit in as well. We still have four months before this cycle’s closure when we determine the future we want for the nation.

Enjoy the parades, the fireworks (though please protect anyone or any pet sensitive to the anxiety the noise induces), and the ice cream. Whatever our many flaws, doubts, and challenges, we still live in the most wonderful country with a bounty of goodness. None, repeat none of that is guaranteed in the future but we need appreciate it today. The sacrifices to get us here have been many and the possible pitfalls of the future are great.

Thoughts on this or any other column are most welcome and encouraged. I am far from having all of the answers so I value your thoughts, suggestions, and corrections. If you find this of value, please circulate as you see fit. Thanks especially to those who subscribe to this column as yo uhave my deepest thanks for the commitment.

The sun rose with a Chespeake beauty this morning. We are scheduled to have rain so I doubt we will have fireworks after dark. Instead, we had splendor at dawn.

Be well and be safe. FIN

National Archives, ‘The Declaration of Independence: a transcript’, Philadelphia, 4 July 1776, retrieved at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript