250 Years Ago ---What an Incredible Experiment!

250 years ago  a group of men notified the King of England that they declared the 13 colonies were then an independent entity on their own. They were no longer a part of England in any way.  That notification became known as The Declaration of Independence.

The date was July 4th, 1776. It became the birth of The United States of America. The colonials realized that they were taking on the most formidable military force in the world at the time. 

A war ensued and, 5 years later, on October of 1781, the British commander, Lord Charles Cornwallis, surrendered the British forces to George Washington and his French allies at Yorktown, Virginia.  13 different colonies, came together to form a union that was destined to change the world.

Transcript

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Well, hi everybody, and welcome to Boomer Nation. This is TK coming to you from our international headquarters in Northeast Ohio. You can reach me at BoomerNation70 at gmail.com. That's Boomernation70 at gmail.com. We've got a bit of a change today. We were going to get into the roaring 20s, and uh it really is a roaring slice of American history. But today we've decided to go to America's 250th anniversary and why it is so incredible. And this year, the U.S. marks, as you as we all know, the 250th anniversary, a quarter of a millennium, since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776. Now, anniversaries come and go, we all know that. Countries celebrate birthdays all the time. But America's 250th anniversary is different, believe me. It is very different. It represents and represents something in the long sweep of human history that is remarkably rare. And to understand why, we need to take a step back and appreciate just how unusual the American experiment really is. In 1776, the United States did not exist. The thirteen colonies along the Atlantic coast were small, divided, and facing the most powerful empire on earth, the Kingdom of Great Britain. Yikes. Many people at the time thought the rebellion would fail. History suggested it should fail. Revolutions at that time were common. Successful revolutions that created stable governments were not. They were really unheard of. The colonists had no guarantee of victory. They lacked a professional army, they had little money, and they were confronting one of the world's greatest military powers. And the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence took a considerable personal risk. By signing, they openly committed themselves to a rebellion against the British Crown. Had the revolution failed, many could have and probably would have been tried for treason and executed. Yet somehow they prevailed. And when you think about America's 250th anniversary, it begins with that astonishing fact alone. The nation survived its birth. And one of the great lessons of history is that republics are fragile. The ancient republics of the world often collapsed into dictatorships, civil war, or conquest. The Roman Republic lasted several centuries before becoming an empire. Many governments established after revolutions throughout Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They experienced coups, military coups, military takeovers, civil wars, or a complete collapse. And the American constitutional system has certainly been tested. It has endured political crises, economic depressions, and assassinations, corrupt scandals, world wars, and intense internal conflict as we can even see today. Yet the basic constitutional framework established in 1787 remains in place today under the United States Constitution. That constitution is absolutely extraordinary. For 250 years, power has changed hands through peaceful elections rather than some military succession. That may sound ordinary to modern Americans, but historically it is anything but ordinary. The founders were attempting something that had rarely been tried on such a scale. Could a large nation govern itself through written laws rather than through a monarchy? Could citizens from different geographic regions, religions, occupations, and backgrounds remain united? Could freedom survive without descending into chaos? And that this nobody knew. The Constitution represented an enormous gamble on human self-government. The men gathered at Independence Hall were not creating perfection. They argued constantly. They disagreed on almost everything. That's why it took thirteen years to go from 1776 and the Declaration of Independence to 1789 and the Constitution. But they produced a system designed not for perfect people, but for imperfect people. That may be one reason why it has lasted so long. If there was ever a moment when America as a country seemed likely to disappear, it was the 1860s. The nation fractured during the Civil War. More Americans died in that conflict than in all the other nations' wars combined. Recent estimates put the number of deaths due to the war at just over 700,000. And incredibly, two-thirds of those deaths were due to disease, like infection or poor sanitation, or poor medical practices. Families were divided, states seceded, the very future of the Republic was in doubt. Many countries have not survived such a crisis, yet the United States emerged from the war still intact. That survival was not inevitable. It remains one of the most consequential turning points in our history. Without it, there might not be a United States celebrating a 250th anniversary today. Another remarkable aspect of our American story is that generation after generation of newcomers chose to come here to live. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, millions of people came from mostly Western Europe, but Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, China, Mexico, and believe it or not, dozens of other nations. Many arrived with little money and uncertain prospects, but they had desire, they had determination, they had hope, and they all came to work. And work they did. They wanted to become Americans. They wanted to be proud to say, hey, we're Americans. They were essential in helping to build this country. Together, they helped build the railroads, factories, farms, businesses, schools, churches, and communities. America's population grew not merely through geography or conquest, but through the continual arrival of people seeking opportunity, and most of them found it. Amazingly, from 1875 to 1930, there were about 33 million immigrants who came into the United States, and they all came legally, such as an example, Ellis Island in New York. Few nations, if any, have integrated such diverse populations for such a long period. So, in 1776, the United States was a narrow strip of settlements along the East Coast. Today, it stretches across an entire continent. Americans built canals, railroads, highways, airports, communication networks that connected distant regions into a single national economy. What once took months to travel can now be crossed in hours. Information is sent and received instantaneously. The transformation from scattered colonies to a modern continental republic is one of the largest nation-building achievements in history. The United States has also played a central role in scientific, industrial, and technological development. American progress was made in a wide range of fields such as mass production, starting with the Model T, you come to think of it, commercial aviation, modern computing, communication and the internet, advanced medicine, and space exploration. The achievement that and I have to say, in some of my discussions with my friends, that the achievement and the progress in American development was amazing when we went from the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903 to only 44 years later when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. While that does show incredible progress, my research into the 250-year anniversary, however, thought of something else. In 1776, there was no electricity, no railroads, travel was by horse, and communications were by written letter. And now, fast forward 193 years, and you've got Americans walking on the moon. Historically speaking, that pace of advancement is truly astonishing. The American story is not merely one of survival and prosperity, though, it is also a story of expanding the promise of liberty. The ideals expressed in the Declaration were not completely realized in 1776. Many groups lacked the rights and opportunities that later generations would fight to secure. For example, the abolition of slavery didn't happen until a civil war broke out in the 1860s in order to abolish it. Women's suffrage was not until 1920, so indeed some things took longer than others. And in some areas, progress was slow, contested, and incomplete. But the fact that Americans repeatedly use constitutional processes to broaden participation in public life is a significant part of our nation's history. So inevitably, some historians debate precise definitions, but there is a broad agreement that the United States is among the world's oldest continuing constitutional republic operating under essentially the same governing document. Think about how many governments have come and gone since 1776. Empires have risen and fallen, kingdoms have disappeared, borders have been redrawn countless times, entire political systems have vanished. Yet the United States remains, the Constitution is still in force, Congress still exists, the Supreme Court still functions, and presidents still serve fixed terms. And that continuity across 250 years is historically very rare. But perhaps the most incredible thing about America's 250th anniversary is not politics or economics, it is people. Over ten generations of Americans have lived between 1776 and today. These Americans fought wars, built towns, raised families, started businesses, invented technologies, explored frontiers, taught their children, cultivated farms, and served communities. Each generation inherited the country from those before it and passed it on to those who followed. The America of today is the accumulated work of millions upon millions of ordinary citizens. Most never became famous. Yet together they created one of the most durable and influential republics in history. And so why is this 250th anniversary truly incredible? Maybe because the nation survived when many expected failure. And because a revolutionary experiment in self-government endured for a quarter of a millennium, and because the Constitution weathered crisis that could easily have destroyed it. Because millions of people from around the world helped build and renew the country, because the United States grew from 13 fragile colonies into a continental republic and global power. And because after 250 years of challenges, disagreements, triumphs, setbacks, and change, the American experiment continues. A quarter of a millennium is a long time for any nation. For a republic founded on the idea that ordinary people can govern themselves, it is a remarkable achievement. And that'll pretty much do it for today, folks. It certainly will not take the place of our annual Fourth of July special. I may even look at a threat or two to our democracy along the way. We'll keep that going. Hopefully, we'll get a singer or two also from our Boomer Nation choir. That might be fun. In any case, I'll leave you with the wise words, as always, from a very famous person. And today that person is Condoleezza Rice, when she said, the essence of America, that which really unites us, is not ethnicity or nationality or religion. It is an idea. And what an idea it is that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. Ain't that the truth, folks? That's it for today, folks. Be safe and God bless you and this great country of ours.