America is 250 years old.
250 years old! It’s a number that would have astonished just about everyone who was there in the beginning. Even many of the Founders expected the United States not to last. That’s not surprising. While today, the creation of both our country and our Constitution seem like Hollywood-worthy moments in history, to those who actually lived them, they were quite the opposite.
Like most births, our nation’s was both glorious and messy.
For example, consider the lead up to the Declaration of Independence. When Richard Henry Lee of Virginia first stood up to say, “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states,” it triggered an uproar that lasted nearly a month.1 Delegates to the Continental Congress argued bitterly. Multiple colonies voted against the idea. News from the war was disastrous. The only thing people could agree on was to take everything off the record. On the eve of the final vote, a tremendous storm broke out, and some delegates had to journey for dozens of miles in the rain just to make it…forcing John Adams to repeat his closing argument for their benefit. (That’s something you’d never see in a movie.)
Or think about when the Constitution was first written. It’s one of the greatest episodes in our national story, but it was hardly cinematic. For four months, fifty-five men labored for long days, in sweltering heat, over the future of our country. Over whether our country would have a future. For all intents and purposes, they were operating outside of the law by debating a constitution at all, since they had been sent merely to amend the Articles of Confederation. The need for secrecy meant the windows had to be kept closed during the hottest months of the year. Outside those windows, the stench of open-aired butcher shops and free-flowing human waste grew worse in the heat. Inside was hardly any better, the air stifling with sweat and frustration.
As the months dragged on, many of the Framers wanted to wrap things up and go home. Points were argued, settled, and then argued again. Most of the New Yorkers left early; the Rhode Islanders never came at all. And even when the work was done, nobody was truly satisfied. Fourteen of the delegates refused to sign, and even some of those who doubted whether the Constitution would last very long. Nathaniel Gorham, who played one of the biggest roles in crafting the convention, publicly stated the United States was unlikely to last more than 150 years.
But as the Convention was ending, as the Constitution itself was being signed, something happened that was worthy of cinema. At the head of the room was a hard wooden chair reserved for the president of the convention, none other than George Washington. At the top of the chair was painted a golden half-sun. Here’s how James Madison described it.2
Whilst the last members were signing, Doctor [Benjamin] Franklin, looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a sun happened to be painted, observed…that the Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun.
“I have often,” said Franklin, “in the course of the Session, looked at that chair behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
When you think about it, both the writing of the Declaration and the creation of the Constitution set the tone for the rest of our country’s story. Often angry, almost always messy, and rarely as romantic as we’d like to believe. But each event set the tone in another way, too: They were triumphs.
Both the Founders and the Framers were often grumpy and frequently disagreed, but the majority of them were also united by a common sense of goodwill and mutual respect. Progress may have been slow, but it was also relentless, building momentum as it went along. Not all of our nation’s problems or dilemmas were solved, but the framework for solving them was created. The Constitution didn’t yet exist when Independence was declared, and many of the freedoms we hold most dear weren’t even in the final version of the Constitution. They had to be added later with the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
America is 250 years old. The road from then to now has been neither straight nor smooth. It probably never will be. Progress has been slow…and nobody is ever really satisfied with the result. But over those years, our country has won a revolution and survived a Civil War. We have ended slavery and extended liberty to millions who were once deprived of it. We have endured Depressions and Recessions, World Wars and Pandemics, crises and chaos. And though we Americans frequently disagree, most of the people I meet, even those with very different views from my own, are united by a common sense of goodwill and respect. Our progress may be slow and halting, but it has never stopped. Not all our national problems and dilemmas have been solved, but history suggests we will solve them…and if not us, our descendants.
The fact we have a country at all is a major accomplishment. The fact that we have endured all that we have and usually emerged stronger from it…well, that’s a miracle.
Our nation is often angry, always messy, and rarely as cinematic as we’d like it to be. But as we celebrate our two-hundred-and-fiftieth Independence Day, as we reflect back on all we’ve been through and all we’ve accomplished, I firmly believe what Benjamin Franklin did:
That over our country, the sun still rises.
Happy Independence Day!
1 Thomas Fleming, “Liberty! The American Revolution,” Viking Penguin, 1997.
2 Richard Beeman, “Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution,” Penguin Random House, 2009.
