On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, columnist Ben Kritz of The Manila Times reflects, from a Philippine vantage point, on how the American founding was never a single moment. A declaration adopted in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 was only one stage in a long and uncertain passage that ran through war, treaty, and ratification until 1788 and beyond. His quiet point is that the date a people chooses to call its beginning is itself a story told in hindsight, shaped more by what we wish to remember than by any clean line in time.
History Is Wonderfully Messy: Why July 4 Is Less Fixed Than It Seems
History is wonderfully messy.
Mark
Why would a Manila columnist spend a July 4 column on the arbitrariness of the date?
Mimi
He says he doesn't feel like celebrating this year, and that reluctance made him look at how the date got its weight. It's an opinion piece built on a mood, but the dates are real.
Mark
Which dates does he lay out?
Mimi
July 2 for the Lee Resolution, July 4 for adoption of the Declaration, Oct. 19, 1781 for Yorktown, Sept. 3, 1783 for the Treaty of Paris, then Sept. 17, 1787 and June 21, 1788 for the Constitution.
Luke
Worth noting that those are his selections. He's not claiming historians dispute July 4 itself, only that other dates could carry the label.
Mark
And he says the Constitution has two possible dates?
Mimi
Yes, adoption by the convention or entry into force after New Hampshire ratified. He says it depends on which historian you ask.
Luke
He doesn't name those historians, so I'd treat that as his characterization.
Mark
What about the Lee family detail?
Mimi
It's an aside. Richard Henry Lee wrote the resolution, and his cousin's son was Robert E. Lee. It adds texture, not argument.
Luke
It also doesn't support the thesis. It's a fun fact, as he calls it.
Mark
And the Civil War dates?
Mimi
He ties them to the idea of a modern American empire that affected the Philippines, which is why he thinks they could also count as a beginning.
Luke
That's the most interpretive leap in the piece. The column asserts it but doesn't develop it.
O Pulso
- A holiday built around July 4, 1776 rests on a declaration that did not end the fighting, which ran on for five more years.
- The Lee Resolution of July 2 and the public reading of the Declaration on July 8 leave the founding moment scattered across several days.
- Surrender at Yorktown in 1781, the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and the Constitution's entry into force in 1788 each offer a rival claim to the start.
- Kritz lingers on the thought that any of these dates, including the 1865 and 1866 Civil War endings, could mark the beginning of the modern American nation that affected the Philippines.
On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, columnist Ben Kritz of The Manila Times reflects, from a Philippine vantage point, on how the American founding was never a single moment. A declaration adopted in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 was only one stage in a long and uncertain passage that ran through war, treaty, and ratification until 1788 and beyond. His quiet point is that the date a people chooses to call its beginning is itself a story told in hindsight, shaped more by what we wish to remember than by any clean line in time.
Ben Kritz opens his column with a flu shot he never got around to taking. He is now nursing himself with soup, Bioflu, lemon tea, and bed rest, and he is not feeling terrible, though he knows others might have it worse.
From there he turns to the 250th anniversary of July 4, a weekend he is not inclined to celebrate this year for reasons he keeps private. He wonders whether the country will have something worth celebrating by next year or the year after. That reluctance sends him back to the question of how arbitrary such founding dates really are.
His case is that July 4, 1776 was not the nation's true birthday. It was the day Congress adopted the Declaration in Philadelphia, two days after it had already voted in the Lee Resolution to end the Crown's authority. The war went on for five more years, and the Americans came close to losing it several times before Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781. Formal peace came with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and the Constitution only took effect in 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not join until 1789 and 1790.
Kritz finds the choice of July 4 almost random. The nation could as easily be dated to April 21, 1775, to Yorktown, to the Treaty of Paris, or to the Constitution. He even widens the list to the 1865 and 1866 surrenders and the end of the Civil War, arguing that any of these could mark the start of the modern American power that has so shaped the Philippines. His conclusion is simple: history is messy, and national origin stories are less fixed than the holiday suggests.
Ben Kritz, writing in his column for The Manila Times, begins with a flu shot. It is the season in the Philippines when health experts, and the drug store chains that sell most of the vaccines, urge people to get immunized. Kritz, who describes himself as being at the age when people tell him to be careful about everything, admits his plan to get the shot within a week did not work out. He is now treating whatever bug is going around with soup, Bioflu, lemon tea, gin and bed rest. It is not too bad, he says, but he warns that it might be worse for someone else.
The column then turns to the July 4 weekend, which this year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the 13 colonies from Great Britain. Kritz says he is not inclined to celebrate as he has in past years, for sociopolitical reasons he declines to detail. He suggests he may celebrate next year, or the year after, if there is something about America worth celebrating by then. That reluctance, he says, set him thinking about how arbitrary such momentous dates are.
His argument is that July 4, 1776 was not the birthday of the United States as we know it. It was the day the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the Declaration. The text was published on July 6 and read to the public on July 8. Two days before the adoption, on July 2, Congress had unanimously passed the Lee Resolution, which declared that the British Crown no longer held governing authority over the colonies.
Kritz adds a genealogical aside. The resolution's author, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, was a cousin of Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee III, a standout Revolutionary War general whose personal life Kritz calls a complete failure. Harry's son was Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general a little less than a century later. Robert was married to a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington.
By the time of the Declaration, Kritz notes, the colonial rebellion had already run for more than a year in a fairly formal way. The battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston, generally treated as the first actions of the Revolutionary War because regular British troops faced colonial militia, took place on April 21, 1775. Declaring independence did not make it real. A five-year war followed, one the Americans came close to losing several times. It effectively ended when British general Charles Cornwallis surrendered to the combined American and French force under Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, on Oct. 19, 1781.
Formal recognition took almost two more years, arriving with the second Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783. The country in a form we would recognize today came later still, depending on which historian is asked. One date is Sept. 17, 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia adopted the Constitution. The other is June 21, 1788, when it legally took effect after New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify. New York and Virginia followed within days. North Carolina held out until November 1789, and Rhode Island until May 1790.
What fascinates Kritz is how unremarkable July 4 is as a marker. The nation's birth could as easily have been assigned to April 21, July 2, Oct. 19, June 21, Sept. 3 or Sept. 17. He goes further, listing April 9, April 26 and Aug. 20, the dates tied to the surrenders of Lee to Grant and of Johnston to Sherman in 1865 and the formal end of hostilities in the Civil War in 1866. Any of these, he says, could be argued as the start of the modern American empire, the version of the US that has most affected the Philippines and the wider world.
His conclusion is brief: history is wonderfully messy. The column offers no prediction, only the suggestion that the choice of a founding date is symbolic, and that national origin stories are less fixed than the holiday implies.
Citações Notáveis
July 4, 1776 was not the birthday of the United States as we know it now.— Ben Kritz, The Manila Times columnist (paraphrase)
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