Celebrating Independence P6

Last week I ended with John Quincy Adams delivering his famous Fourth of July speech by asking the assembled crowd a light-hearted question: Why is it, friends and fellow citizens that you are here assembled and why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day, the Fourth of July?

Notice Adams’ answer: Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?

According to John Quincy Adams, the two holidays of Christmas and Independence Day were intrinsically connected. Across the generations on the Fourth of July, not only the Founders but those who came after them reminded Americans that God was the Author of our Liberties.  

More on this next week for another American Moment.

Sourced From The American Story: The Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton.