Curt Smith: Declaration of Independence merits big birthday bash

America is sleepwalking into the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. There is far less interest in and understanding of this auspicious occasion than deserved, suggesting deep public ignorance.

This is in sharp contrast to 1976, the 200th anniversary, when our only unelected president (Gerald Ford took over when Richard Nixon resigned) used the moment to foster national unity following the twin disasters of Watergate and Vietnam.

We are still more than eight months away from the 250th anniversary, so maybe the public’s interest will be moved from ignorance to awareness. That’s because Americans should be enthralled with the significance of the moment and its meaning.

One hundred years ago, there was also greater interest and understanding as the anniversary arrived. This was captured in the remarks of President Calvin Coolidge, considered by many scholars to be our most conservative president. He was also a great wordsmith who wrote most of his own speeches and statements.

Speaking in Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration was signed, Coolidge said:

“It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.”

He then went on to argue that the religious faith of the colonists was the cauldron in which those three revolutionary ideas developed.

“No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence, we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.“

Let’s awake, America, from this slumber of ignorance and prepare to celebrate and revere the truly revolutionary declaration that birthed our nation in a far more troubling and tumultuous time than our own.

We could begin by reading Coolidge’s speech to prepare for an acknowledgement fitting for our exceptional nation.•

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Smith is chairman of the Indiana Family Institute and author of “Deicide: Why Eliminating The Deity is Destroying America.” Send comments to [email protected].

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