Readership Capture

This holiday weekend, let’s be safe and smart. It’s going to take all of us to beat this virus. So wear a mask. Wash your hands. And listen to the experts, not the folks trying to divide us. That's the only way we’ll do this—together.https://t.co/UwNKAzL8JU

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 3, 2020

The best virtual Fourth of July events, from firework shows to a Declaration of Independence reading https://t.co/iyydndYG71

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 3, 2020

Perspective: Trump’s idea of the Fourth of July is totally wrong https://t.co/BMkUCqWg6t

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 3, 2020

J.M. Opal, history professor, for the Washington Post:

… It began in the mid-1760s, as hard economic times set in after Britain’s most recent war with France. To pay its creditors and reduce its debt, the British government imposed regressive new taxes and banned much-needed paper money throughout the American colonies. Sailors and tradesmen responded by rioting in Boston, which was full of unemployed men and war widows.

To their surprise, the beleaguered New Englanders found support from fellow colonials as far away as South Carolina, the only North American province with a black majority.

But after hearing white patriots demand “liberty” on the streets of Charleston, groups of enslaved men chanted that same slogan, sending local slaveholders into a long panic.

As the empire tightened the screws over the next decade, Colonial women began to renounce imported finery — London was the seat of British fashion as well as power — in favor of “homespun” clothing. The idea was to make the colonies more self-sufficient. “Women and Children, both within Doors and without, set their Spinning Wheels a whirling in Defiance of Great Britain,” noted one observer.

By standing up to the great men of England, these women often wrote that they felt “useful” and “notable” for the first time. They soon began to question old assumptions about female weakness and wickedness and to denounce cruel fathers and husbands as petty tyrants.

With rebellion in the air, the colonies became more democratic than ever before. In Massachusetts, people at town meetings looked past their traditionally parochial interests, telling their representatives to protect freedom of the press and stop the “unchristian and impolitick” practice of slavery throughout the province. They made clear that all authority came from “the body of the people” and that governments should advance the “general welfare” against arbitrary power and selfish individuals.

In New York, direct democracy by popularly elected committees replaced old patterns of gentry rule. Made up of a cross section of adult men, these committees didn’t just tear down royal authority; they assumed the ordinary work of governing, inspecting roads and taverns and enforcing fire and health regulations. For the first time, marveled a writer calling himself “A Poor Man,” ordinary people were “effectually represented” by accountable authorities.

In Philadelphia, workers and radicals rose up not only against British rule but also against Pennsylvania’s conservative assembly. They demanded voting rights and equitable tax and land policies. Among their leaders was the British emigre Thomas Paine, whose January 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense” urged Americans to look past their ethnic and religious differences and embrace the larger struggle: “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” That May, a huge crowd in Philadelphia sent the old assembly packing — the stunning culmination of a full-blown revolution in one of the most diverse parts of the British world.

By then, a good number of the roughly 2.5 million colonists were already committed to independence. One historian has found 85 small-D declarations of independence written before Thomas Jefferson’s famous version. These little-known texts came from towns in New England, counties in Virginia and Maryland, grand juries in South Carolina and one mechanics association from New York City. They turned particular grievances into a bold vision for a new kind of country…

This July 4th, there is a new name synonymous with traitor. Move over Benedict Arnold. Meet…#BenedictDonald #TRE45ON pic.twitter.com/zH0TgMf0Rb

— VoteVets (@votevets) July 3, 2020

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Independence DayPost + Comments (217)