On the great day itself the program followed a pattern that had already become standard. Business was suspended and salutes were fired. The military companies usually led the procession to a grove or riverbank near town. There the reading and speaking were done, and all sat down to a cold but abundant collation. In the national capital plans for the Jubilee celebration had been formulated by a committee of thirteen under the chairmanship of Mayor Roger Weightman.
The mayor was authorized to invite to the ceremonies all the signers of the Declaration of Independence and all the ex-Presidents yet living. But not one of them was able to attend. However disappointing this may have been to the committee, it yielded one result of incalculable value. All the letters of declination, printed in the Washington papers on the Fourth, were happily phrased, and several contain sentiments worthy of remembrance. Respected Sir: The kind invitation I received from you, on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of American Independence, as one of the surviving signers of an instrument, pregnant with our own and the fate of the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey.
It adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in he rejoicings of that day; but acquiescence is a duty under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to control. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all. The form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.
All eyes arc opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
These are grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. He had labored over its phrasing, distilling to the very essence his thoughts on American institutions and their influence on the world at large. A member of the committee brought the several letters from the signers to President John Quincy Adams on July g. Within a few days it was being reprinted up and down and across the land, and plans were made to issue a facsimile on silk.
A Confident Nation Celebrates the Fourth. In the morning the volunteer military companies assembled in Lafayette Square, saluted President John Quincy Adams, and marched to the Capitol, accompanied by the Marine Band and followed by Mr.
Adams in a carriage and cabinet members and military and naval officers on horseback. July 5 passed normally in Washington, the President studying books on forestry, with a view to starting a nursery, and the ladies of his family making sketches of leaves he had gathered in his walks.
But on the sixth, Secretary Barbour brought word that at midday on the Fourth, at the moment the Jubilee celebrations were at their height, Mr.
Three days later, the mail brought the President several letters from members of his family at Quincy, the latest of them written on the morning of the Fourth. The innkeeper, a Mr. What was this young nation like in its Jubilee year? The United States in actually stretched from sea to sea. Of the 24 states in the Union two were now established beyond the Mississippi.
Senator Benton of Missouri, which was one of them, this year predicted that the lure of the present Middle West would largely depopulate tidewater America.
Virtually all sections of the country shared in the steady increase of population, which, approaching the 12,, mark in , had quadrupled in the fifty years since the first Fourth of July. More than ninety per cent of the American people were still living on farms, but the spectacular development of industry following the War of was attracting more and more laborers to the northeastern cities.
The Erie Canal had been completed, and dedicated with great pomp, in the fall of , and in the following July Niles joyfully reported that three or four hundred boats now passed through the booming city of Utica every week. No fewer than other canal projects, he added, were under way in various parts of the Union.
The effect of these developments on national politics was profound. The old division between Federalists and Republicans had been largely wiped out, but as early as , when Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin submitted his great Report on internal improvements, the Republicans had divided among themselves on this issue.
The Message offered all the political leaders who disliked Adams—and they were numerous and powerful when acting in concert—a target as broad as a barn door. The most absurd evidence was accepted as proof of his avarice, his ambition, and his extravagance with public funds.
Americans were somewhat better agreed on foreign than on domestic policy. This was perhaps because there had been no grave crises in our foreign relations since the happy outcome of the War of at New Orleans and at Ghent. The British, with whom we had had to deal most frequently, instead of showing resentment after the war, had actually courted our favor.
The Continental powers were too well occupied in detecting and suppressing revolutionary impulses among their own restless peoples to concern themselves greatly with our affairs. Former Los Angeles Times staff writer Melissa Etehad is an Iranian American who enjoys writing about national and international issues. Can Biden and Xi talk their way out of a slide into conflict? Travis Scott sought to uplift Houston. Did he let it down? All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property.
Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Three of the first five presidents died on July 4. By Melissa Etehad. Thomas Jefferson died at his beloved Monticello estate in Virginia on July 4, Melissa Etehad. Follow Us twitter. More From the Los Angeles Times. Pemberton surrenders to Union General Ulysses S.
Grant at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. The declaration came days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Space Exploration. Art, Literature, and Film History. Civil War. Sign Up.
American Revolution.
0コメント