A Declaration of Independence from Tyranny, With Liberty and Justice for All

Good afternoon from sweltering Washington, where my neighborhood parade convened before the heat of the day fully arrived.

Alex Howard, with another civic text on a day when far more of my fellow Americans pay attention to civics. As always, thank you for subscribing, sharing, commenting, and connecting. You can find me at alex@governing.digital with questions, concerns, and other feedback.

Today, our union’s uneven progress towards extending the unalienable rights to “life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness” to all Americans continues.

Happy Fourth of July, where we are celebrating independence from Great Britain 248 years ago. Across the Atlantic, folks in the United Kingdom appear poised to recognize the end of a Tory government as well.

I’ve often found the mornings of July 4th to be a good time for reflection on our past, present, and future.

The words of Frederick Douglas remind us that “Independence Day” was a sham while our union allowed our original sin of slavery to endure:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. 

Until the Civil War ended a treasonous insurrection that sought to preserve and extend the immoral institution of chattel slavery, the rights of life and liberty were reserved to white men,

Until the Suffrage Movement led to the enactment and ratification of the 19th Amendment, half of the population of the USA could not exercise their right to participate in the most basic act of our democracy: voting.

Until the Civil Rights movement, African Americans across the USA were routinely denied the “unalienable” rights in the Declaration – particularly under unjust Jim Crow laws in the Old South.

Until the Gay Rights movement, Americans across the USA were denied civil rights due to prejudice and unjust, discriminatory laws. Harvey Milk asked us to be better, and perhaps we are, as a people – but our journey to equal rights is far from over, despite recent milestones.

Today, our fellow Americans who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, & transgender still to face injustice, discrimination & violence.

“Equal justice under the law” remains a promise unfulfilled in far too many of our communities.

As our union celebrates Independence Day, 248 years on from 1776, the words of the Declaration echo differently, shadowed by the knowledge that justices have reshaped the powers of the presidency in ways our founders would recognize, & rebuke.

I love our nation, of, by, & for the People, despite the flaws & hypocrisies that have been self-evident over the centuries, precisely because the arc of our moral progress has been bent towards justice, liberty, and freedom by the ceaseless efforts of Americans over the centuries.

Ending slavery, universal suffrage, and civil rights ushered in a new nation in 1965, born out of the hopes, dreams, and sacrifices of generations who yearned to breathe free.

In a more perfect union, these unalienable rights will extend to all Americans, united in a common civic creed in which our progress is measured not by the prosperity of our people but the presence of liberty and justice for all.

I love our country, even while I grieve for the pain that its government is imposing on innocents & injustice that ensures.

I will pledge allegiance to the Flag. I will read our Constitution. I will sing the National Anthem.

On our Independence Day, I will remember what was, what yet could still be.

If you celebrate July 4th, may you and yours find peace, poetry, and purpose in the sweep of shared history.