With America’s 250th in sight, these books illuminate the true spirit of the Declaration of Independence |
The Latinate term for the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is “semiquincentennial,” which doesn’t roll off the tongue easily. (You can use the alternative Latinates “bisesquicentennial” or “sestercentennial” if you like, though these sound too much like something a college DEI office would make up.)
The nomenclature of our chronology is likely to be the least controversial aspect of the upcoming observance of our nation’s birth, as it promises to reignite old and inflame new controversies about the character of the American Founding and its key document.
These challenges come from both the left and parts of the right. The infamous 1619 Project of The New York Times regards the Declaration as deceptive propaganda to hide the true character of America as a “slaveocracy” rather than a democratic republic, while some conservatives, including, apparently, Vice President JD Vance, are uncomfortable with the “creedal” aspect of the Declaration’s most famous clause about the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal.”
As was the case at the bicentennial in 1976, the pageantry on July 4, 2026, will include a large flotilla of “tall ships” — replicas of the grand colonial-era wooden vessels with elaborate rigging — sailing up the Hudson River into New York Harbor. It is likely that if Kamala Harris were president now instead of Donald Trump, the observance might feature a flotilla of slave ships instead, so ingrained has the repudiation of the American Founding become among the identitarian left. Don’t put it past Mayor Mamdani to attempt to slip some in.
In fact, the Declaration was controversial before the ink had dried in Philadelphia on that fateful July 4, 1776, and the debate over its proper understanding has raged unabated ever since. The charge that the principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slave owner is thought to discredit the Declaration on account of the obvious hypocrisy.
Contemporary leftist critics of the Founding think they discovered this glaring contradiction the day before yesterday, but it was pointed out at the time, by — among others — Jefferson himself. The great English critic Samuel Johnson slammed American professions about liberty by asking, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” His contemporary Edmund Burke, who was sympathetic to the grievances of the American colonists, disliked the Declaration for its radical potential, though he held back from public criticism, hoping the rebellious colonists could be persuaded to withdraw it and reconcile with Britain.
And the hypocrite Jefferson? He was wincingly aware of the defect of his own example, writing in 1781, in reference to slavery, that “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is........