Independence Day—July 2nd or July 4th?

John Trumbull. 1818. “Declaration of Independence.” U.S. Capitol. Washington, D.C.

From the end of the French and Indian War until 1770, the conflict between Great Britain and the American Colonies had intensified into full-blown violence, culminating with the Boston Massacre in March 1770. For the next five years, small skirmishes took place throughout the Colonies. Then, in April of 1775, British troops were ordered to confiscate weapons from town arsenals and other military equipment caches, and to arrest leaders of organizations who were calling for rebellion against Great Britain. On April 19th, 1775, in the Battle of Lexington and Concord the Colonial militia drove the British military back to Boston.

The Colonies were not fully ready or willing to go to war against what was at the time the most powerful military in the world. On July 5th, 1775, the Second Continental Congress drafted the Olive Branch Petition in hopes that the conflict could be put to an end. Many members of Congress were upset that any attempt to appease Great Britain was being made, but Congress realized that the Olive Branch Petition could fail and on July 6th drafted the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. The next month, Great Britain issued the Proclamation of Rebellion after King George III learned about the Battle of Bunker Hill which took place on June 17th, 1775.

In spite of that, the Colonies were still willing to negotiate peace and continued to make attempts until the summer of 1776. In June, "the Committee of Five" was selected to draft a declaration. The committee consisted of John Adams (Mass.), Benjamin Franklin (Penn.), Thomas Jefferson (Virg.), Robert R. Livingston (N. Yk.), and Roger Sherman (Conn.).

On July 2nd, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced the following resolution to the Second Continental Congress: "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." Thus, July 2nd, 1776 is the date that the Second Continental Congress declared American independence from Great Britain.

John Adams, who had been frustrated with attempts at peace negotiations over the previous year was elated and wrote to his wife on July 3rd, 1776, telling her, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

If America officially declared independence from Great Britain on July 2nd, why do we celebrate on July 4th?

After the measure was passed, a committee was formed to create a document that would explain the resolution and its reasoning to the general public. The committee of five, already at work on the declaration went back to work in earnest and by July 4th, they had all the elements they believed would be required. Thomas Jefferson was recognized as the most eloquent writer and was assigned with the final draft which was then taken to a printer that day. Thus, the header of the Declaration of Independence reads, "In Congress, July 4, 1776"

200 broadsides were printed and sent out throughout the colonies. 26 of those still exist. The original handwritten version wasn't signed until August 2nd, 1776. Since members of Congress were pretty tied up with the war, they didn't think about the Declaration again until July 3rd, 1777 and July 4th seemed to make sense as the day to celebrate independence. John Adams and many of the Federalists still believed that July 2nd should be the date, but Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans believed it should be July 4th and the argument continued until 1812 when the Federalists faded away as a party. After that, July 4th was cemented as Independence Day.

On July 2nd, 1826, Thomas Jefferson wrote his final letter and commended future generations to remember and celebrate Independence Day, not just as a day to remember America's independence, but as the day that the first world government recognized all human rights. He wrote, "For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."

Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died two days later on July 4th, 1826.

History is revised all the time and that's okay

The term "historical revisionism" is too often misused. Revising history is why historians exist. When most people talk about "historical revisionism" what they really mean is denialism, negationism, or distortion. Denialism and negationism are essentially the same things. Denialists say historical facts did not actually happen. For instance, there is a growing number of people who adhere to the negationist belief that the Holocaust did not take place.

Often kissing cousins to denialism/negationism is historical distortionism. Distortionists take well-known events, people, and places and change them and their history to fit a philosophical agenda. A mild example of this, using the Holocaust as an example once again, would be those who say, "Well, yeah, the Nazis did kill six million Jews, but they killed a lot of other people too," in an attempt to minimize the effect the Holocaust had on Jews as a people.

A more common type of distortionism happens when advocates of a specific philosophical agenda pick and choose which facts to believe, teach, or emphasize when teaching history. In history and especially Latin American history, we refer to this as either the White Legend or the Black Legend.

The White Legend is a version of history that focuses on a specific group of people as heroes of history. They were all great, they were all godly, they were all brilliant, and their lives should be emulated. In the study of Western Civilization, that would be like focusing on the fact that Greeks developed democracy while ignoring the fact that most of the population of Greece were slaves and were completely disfranchised. Scholarly adherents of the White Legend might concede the existence of slavery while qualifying that concession with "yeah but."

The Black Legend, on the other hand, vilifies the heroes of the White Legend and even when talking about their achievements, they do it in a way that shines the brightest lights on their flaws and misdeeds. The Black Legend also will focus on oppressed peoples as the heroes of the story, often ignoring the flaws of the oppressed that they criticized in the oppressors. An example would be the growing narrative of the colonization of the New World as the worst thing to ever happen in the history of mankind and the Old World, especially Europe should be apologizing for ever setting foot in the New World. Black Legend historians also frequently commit the historian's fallacy, that is they judge the past and the people of the past by today's standards, rather than judging them based on the standards of the past and recognizing that those people were products of their environment and upbringing in that society and culture of the past.

The reality, where good history is involved, lies between the two. We can look at the achievements of people of the past and say, "Wow! That's really something." We can also look at their flaws and the things that we would consider evil in our time and say, "Wow. That's really bad." The trick is to be both unbiased and nuanced. Something that is woefully missing from the public narrative and the teaching of history in too many schools. Frankly, I think I was lucky in college to have a majority of professors who at least attempted to remain unbiased and present a nuanced version of history. That said, one of my favorite professors was openly biased about some things in history. He and I disagreed on how Thomas Jefferson should be approached on day one of the first class I had with him. I took that professor twice and loved his class both times and even got As without sacrificing my approach to history.

The worst kind of distortionism, albeit also the rarest, is when "historians" just make up history.

A few years ago, Virginia came out with a new history textbook for elementary school. In the 4th grade text in the section on the Civil War, there was a claim that free blacks in the South and slaves actually served as soldiers in the Confederacy. No such thing happened. When the author, Joy Masoff was asked why she included the section, she said she wanted to "add a little something extra."

A few months ago, I read an article on the website, We Are the Mighty, titled, “5 cringeworthy military slang terms (that we should actually retire),” that suggested the term "in country" was a shortened form of “Indian Country,” and was used in the military to mean enemy territory. Having been in the military, the only use of the term "in country" I have ever heard referred to actually being in a country while deployed. The author of the article, Blake Stilwell was suggesting that the term, “in country” no longer be used because of its racist heritage. The author of the article provided a link to order Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States where the article's author found the claim. I had never heard this claim before, so first, I searched to see if this claim had been made by anyone else. It had not. Second, I looked up the etymology of the phrase "in country" to see its history. The phrase "in country," according to the Oxford English Dictionary was first used in 1560 in England and was actually the shortening of the phrase "interior country" meaning the interior regions of any country. The phrase’s first use in the 20^th century was in 1953, in a book of poetry by Dylan Thomas called, A Prospect of the Sea and meant being in a specific country. So, then, I got a hold of Dunbar-Ortiz's book and looked up the sections where she refers to "in country." One section claims that the phrase “in country” was a shortening of the phrase "Indian Country" and originated in the Vietnam War, which according to the Oxford English Dictionary is incorrect. So, I then looked up her sources in the footnotes and bibliography. She had one footnote for both times she made her claim, but that footnote just describes what qualifies as “Indian Country” according to political scientist Sharon O’Brien in her 1993 book, American Indian Tribal Governments. The term “in country” does not appear anywhere in O’Brien’s work either. Without a source to back up her claim and with scholarly sources that actually counter Dunbar-Ortiz’s claim, one can only assume that she made it up.

Often, fabrications, like Masoff’s claim about black Confederate soldiers, are easy to spot and debunk. Fabrications like Dunbar-Ortiz’s claim are more insidious because she has a Ph.D. in History from a respected university and most people will simply take her claim at face value and then repeat it, even in academic settings. I took a humanities course in college and the professor with a Ph.D. repeated the “rule of thumb” urban legend as fact. This particular urban legend states that English Common Law stipulated that a man could beat his wife as long as the rod he used was no wider than the width of his thumb. This urban legend is easily disprovable, but because it is often repeated as factual in feminist academic circles, it continues to be treated as fact in many places in the rest of academia.

Teaching history is difficult enough as it is because there is a lot of it. History teachers and curriculum developers have to balance teaching good history along with trying to determine the most important topics to cover in the time allotted. On top of that, there are political forces at work, pulling from all directions that demand their important topics are covered as well. When the curriculum is finalized and shows up in school districts, teachers have to figure out how to teach the curriculum in a way that also meets the demands placed on them by standardized testing objectives created at the state and federal levels.

Primary school teachers are rarely history majors and get an awful lot wrong. I first learned about Christopher Columbus in second grade and was taught that Columbus set out on his 1492 voyage to prove that the world is round when most of the people of his day still believed that the world was flat. Neither of those claims is true. Most people in 15^th century Europe believed the world was spherical and had for centuries. Aristotle is often credited with being the first to claim the earth was a sphere, but people for centuries before Aristotle—Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, Mesopotamians, and Phoenicians—had an understanding of a spherical earth, especially mariners. I was also taught that Columbus discovered America, but the fact that there were humans in the Americas for thousands of years makes that claim clearly incorrect. Even the claim that he was the first European to set foot in the New World is wrong because the Vikings accomplished that hundreds of years before Columbus.

In secondary schools (middle schools and high schools) history teachers are just as often history majors as they majors of other social sciences. A teacher I had the opportunity to observe who teaches history was a political science major and has a J.D. She told me that she knew a lot about history and the facts behind most of the laws she teaches in her government classes, but she was at a loss on how to teach straight history. She still sends me notes from time-to-time for advice on certain subjects.

The point I am trying to make is that teachers in public schools, regardless of what their biases may be—and yes they have biases and yes they sneak them into their curriculum—have an incredibly demanding job just trying to meet the standards. People often tell me, “So much has been erased from history books.” I have to respond, “False.” The information is still there, but there is not enough time to teach everything that everyone wants to teach. In Western Civilization, when teaching about the development of democracy in Greece, I really wish more time was spent on Cleisthenes, the man who essentially invented democracy, how he came up with the idea, why he came up with the idea, and a little more of his background to really give a context for his invention of democracy. Yet, I never heard of Cleisthenes before I graduated from high school. In my Western Civilization course in college, Cleisthenes was mentioned one time in one sentence in the one chapter on Greece that covered Greece’s pre-history through Hellenistic Greece. My professor, who spent three lectures on Greece never mentioned Cleisthenes one time. I watched a documentary on Ancient Greece last week, a documentary I thought was fabulous by the way, yet Cleisthenes was only mentioned in passing at the end of the second episode. I think Cleisthenes is the biggest hero of Greece’s Golden Age, but to most historians, he’s a footnote.

Some people cry, “I can’t stand the way history has been changed.” History is going to change. It has to. I mean, if we have all the documentation on a person, place, or event, history may not change much, if at all. However, because of human nature, historical evidence gets lost, destroyed, misplaced, or hidden and it takes years, sometimes, for that evidence to come to light. Sometimes, when that evidence comes to light, it completely changes the way historians understand and interpret history and history has to change. I’m writing this essay because of the way so many people recently have been making this very complaint.

Just the other day, I saw a meme on Facebook that claimed that the Pyramids of Giza were built by slaves. I made a simple response challenging that idea since archaeologists and historians no longer believe this. Between finding no slave burials at or near the site, the care in which the people who worked on the pyramids were treated when they died, the records the workers left behind, and numerous other archaeological findings, it became clear to archaeologists, historians, and Egyptologists that slaves were not involved. My response was intended as a light-hearted comment that I hoped would direct people to look up the information. I even included a line in my response that the pyramids were also not built by aliens or with spaceships and ended it with a “winking” emoji. My claim was met with abuse. I’m not easily offended, but I figured the replies I had received were just based on ignorance, so I responded by posting an article by Zahi Hawass, who is the world’s leading Egyptologist. It was not a scholarly peer-reviewed work, but I made the mistake of believing that Hawass was well-enough known to be respected. I was wrong. Hawass was accused by one commenter of being a racist elitist and that the article I posted was merely his opinion. I gave up, because willful ignorance is hard to overcome. Many people came to my defense and Hawass’ article replying with comments about archaeological findings and mentioning articles and books to read, but at some point, you’re just feeding trolls. It’s best to just let them starve.

“They’re not teaching history the way I was taught history.” The way history is taught is going to change over time. It has to. Too many people contributed to history that have been left out of the story. American history, for instance, is usually taught as a line of progress, led by white men. Yes, white men enslaved Africans, but who freed the slaves? Abraham Lincoln who was white. Women fought for the right to vote, but who gave them the right to vote? The mostly white, male Congress when they passed the 19^th amendment. African-Americans fought for their very Civil Rights, but who gave it to them? The white President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

I must concede that my statement in the above paragraph was slightly hyperbolic. Obviously, there are some non-white, non-male people who have been included in the teaching of history, but has history really been all that inclusive? Let me use the Revolutionary era and the Revolutionary War as one example. Most Americans are familiar with the Boston Massacre which took place on March 5, 1770. Many Americans might even be familiar with the fact that the first man to die in the event was Crispus Attucks. However, most people don’t know that he was black, and fewer still know that he also was part Native American. How about the famous Midnight Ride of Paul Revere? Most people don’t know that there was another midnight rider that night. While Revere rode west, another man, Wentworth Cheswell rode north to warn other communities. Wentworth Cheswell’s mother was white. His father was black. There were other midnight riders as well, one of them was a woman, Sybil Ludington who made her midnight ride April 26^th, 1777. She rode 40 miles (twice the distance of Paul Revere) to warn militiamen in Putnam County, New York that the British were going to attack a Continental Army supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut. Deborah Sampson was a woman who dressed up like a man to fight in the Revolutionary War and received a pension after the war, even after her secret was discovered and in spite of her having broken the law concerning women in military service.

There are even more stories of brave men and women of all ethnicities who fought and died for what would become the United States of America. We can’t tell all their stories in a single curriculum, but we can tell more than we have, which is why history isn’t taught the way I was taught or you were taught, nor should it be. When we do bump up the untold stories up the list of priority, someone who previously had their story told gets bumped off the curriculum. Their stories still exist, but people who are generally interested and concerned about history will have to do some extra reading.

While most historians attempt to remain unbiased, history is still a subject of some interpretation. I don’t mean that historians interpret something to have happened or not, because the evidence provides us with the answers to the questions of who, what, and where. Historians often have to answer the questions of why and how and it is absolutely impossible to prevent any biases from slipping in. Even so, historians can still come to a consensus about some interpretations simply because the subjects of history often leave the answers to all the questions.

History is going to change and that’s okay. It changes every day. As long as people exist in places and do things, more and more will be added to history, which makes it change. History also changes as new evidence is discovered, which also happens every day. Those discoveries affect not only our knowledge of history but our interpretations as well. Attitudes, ideas, and cultures change, and as long as they continue to change, interpretations of history, where there is room for interpretation, will change along with them. If history doesn’t change, there is no purpose for historians. It’s also important for non-historians to know history, though, because as George Santayana is often quoted as correctly observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If remembering the past were not important, then that would be the final nail in the coffin for historians. Knowing history also means knowing that change happens not only in history but how history is done. That's what revision is and that's why revision is actually a good thing.

Azulão

Composer: Jayme Ovalle (1894-1955)
Lyrics: Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968)

In early March, cellist Yo-Yo Ma encouraged musicians around the world to create music during the COVID-19 global pandemic and attach the hashtag #SongsOfComfort. I first fell in love with this song in 1990 and it has always brought me comfort. So, using my very limited recording capabilities, I recorded this song in my home on March 19. While I uploaded the video on Facebook and Instagram, I completely forgot to upload it here. I hope people will enjoy and take comfort during their time at home.

#SongsOfComfort #StayHome #WithMe #QuarantineAndChill #FlattenTheCurve

The Coronavirus, Giving Feet to Your Prayers, and Not Foolishly Tempting God

“Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38)

There is an old saying: “Put feet to your faith,” or alternatively, “Put feet to your prayers.” In other words, prayer is necessary and important. As Hank Hanegraff has famously said, “Prayer is firing the winning shot before the battle ever takes place.” However, it’s also important to understand that God usually uses people—His people—to accomplish His purposes. In the verse quoted above, Christ tells his disciples that laborers are needed to accomplish God’s purposes. Then, in the very next chapter, Christ sends his disciples to accomplish His purposes (Matthew 10:5). Christ, in those passages, sets the example that we need to pray and then we need to go do something, when we are able, to accomplish what we are praying for.

There was a man who lived alone in an area prone to flooding. One year, a storm came through that threatened to breach dikes and the potential for flooding was extremely high. Officials warned people living in the area where the man lived that the whole area could be submerged and ordered an evacuation. The man laughed at the television broadcast and said, “The Lord will provide.”

As the storm began to roll in, local government officials began going door-to-door to warn people to evacuate. A police officer in a truck came to the man’s house, knocked on the door, and warned him that the river levels were rising, could breach the dikes any minute, and told him he needed to evacuate. The officer even offered to assist the gentleman in gathering any necessities. The man simply waved the officer away saying, “The Lord will provide.”

As predicted, the river breached the dikes and soon the whole area was flooded. At first, the man simply went up to the second floor of his house. A man in a boat drove by and noticed the man in his home. The boatman told the man to get in the boat and the man waved him away with cries of, “The Lord will provide.”

Hours later, the man was forced to the roof of his home as the river waters overwhelmed his second floor. A helicopter from the Coast Guard flew over and noticed the man. They lowered a ladder and told him to climb in, but the man waved them away with the same cries of, “The Lord will provide.”

Finally, the water overwhelmed the house, the man was swept away and drowned. As he stood before God, he said, “I thought you would provide.” In response, God said, “I provided a news report, a truck, a boat, and a helicopter.”

When God told Moses that He would deliver Israel, He also told Moses that he would be the instrument of delivery. James tells us to be “doers of the word and not hearers only” (James 1:22). James also shows us what that means:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:15-17).

A person can’t depend on faith that food and clothing will just magically appear. Something needs to be an instrument of provision. Usually, the instrument of provision is a job, but when people fall on hard times, they turn to charity and God’s people should then become that instrument of provision.

We may pray for the poor, but we also need to provide for the poor. We may pray for change in the world, but perhaps we should take note of Mahatma Gandhi’s advice to “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Often, when tragedy strikes, you will often hear Christians say they are sending their thoughts and prayers. They are then immediately ridiculed by unbelievers who say, “You can pray all day long, but what good will it do? Maybe you should go and do something!” Good point and James makes this very same point:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:18-20)

This is the same conversation—an unbeliever is ridiculing a believer who sits around and does nothing while the unbelievers are out working and making changes in the world. James says, faith is not enough. Even worse, faith without works is dead. You can believe all the right things and even be sure of your own salvation, but what good does that do if you keep it to yourself? The word “dead” is correctly translated, but it is used here as a euphemism for being worthless, good for nothing.

As the song, This little light of mine says: 

Hide it under a bushel?

No!

It’s not enough to say, “I have faith.” It’s not enough to say, “I’m thinking of you and praying for you.” One must show their faith through action. As James wrote, “I will show thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

Now, if a family’s house burns down, you may not be able to provide a new house or the long-term housing for a displaced family by yourself, but that’s where the community of faith comes in. The whole church can come together and help those in need. The church I go to has a winter clothing drive in the fall and provides clothing to those in need throughout the year. The church also has a food pantry to help people in need of food. My church is not unique in these ministries. When people are in need, the church can provide all kinds of help to its members and I can speak from personal experience because I have been both the recipient and benefactor of charity through my local church.

To those who mock believers for sending thoughts and prayers, keep in mind that when tragedy strike, it is usually believers as part of the community of faith who are the first on the scene providing aid, comfort, and helping in whatever way they can. When hurricanes hit, churches are usually already assisting in the recovery before FEMA and other government agencies can even get mobilized.

Along with the strange idea that God will magically provide through prayer, as if God has a Star Trek transporter in heaven that He uses to beam down our needs, is the idea that we can put ourselves in unnecessary danger and if we pray to God, He will deliver us from all harm. Granted, if it’s God’s will, He can do some amazing things and even deliver us from all harm, but that doesn’t mean we should tempt God—that is we should not put Him to the test.

In the early 16^th century, the plague hit Saxony (part of modern-day Germany). Wittenberg, the home of one of the most famous men in Church history, Martin Luther was especially hard hit. COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is unlikely to affect humanity on the same scale like the plague, but Martin Luther’s response seems both relevant to the discussion of putting our feet to our prayers and not foolishly tempting God by putting ourselves in unnecessary risk. One pastor, Dr. John Hess wrote to Luther asking for advice on how to deal with the plague. Martin Luther wrote this in response:

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”

Christ told his followers the pray with the faith that they would receive what they prayed for. “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). However, James also tells us that people often do not have their prayers answered in the way they expect because they were praying selfishly. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).

Praying selfishly is just another way of putting God to the test. Praying something like, “God. I’ll believe you exist if you give me a million dollars,” or “God, if you make my debt go away, I’ll become a missionary” are hypothetical examples of how people tempt God—put God to the test—through prayer.

There are four lessons to take away from all this:

1. Pray selflessly. It’s okay to ask for your needs and your health, but try to remember that it’s not just about you.

2. Pray with faith that you will receive what you ask for. Don’t just go through the motions of prayer thinking it’s meaningless. Prayer has power. But…

3. Pray with action. God usually uses people to achieve His purposes.

4. Do not pray in a way that puts God to the test. Don’t foolishly put yourself in harm thinking that God is going to protect you every time, and don’t pray selfishly, especially when you know you’re asking for something that God does not want you to have.

Think about it.