The Fourth of July

It took the modern world two days to catch up to President John Adams’ enthusiasm for a national celebration. On July 3, 1776, Adams wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

Three of the country’s first five presidents died on the Fourth of July. Ideological rivals during their politically formative years and after, owing largely to an election that is still considered one of the most disreputable in the nation’s history, Adams, the second president of the United States, and Jefferson, drew close together after both had put aside active politics. Adams died at 90, Jefferson at 83, hours apart on July 4, 1826. Before he breathed his last, Adams whispered – almost a prayer -- “Jefferson still lives.”

Five years after the deaths of Adam and Jefferson, the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, died on July Fourth. The much underrated Calvin Coolidge was born on the Fourth of July, 1872.    

The Fourth of July marked a turning point in the Civil War after Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered to Union forces at Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1863. Two years later, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant after the Battle of Appomattox Court House.  Following General Pemberton’s surrender at Vicksburg --  which severed the trans-Mississippi states of Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy, thus depriving its army of much of the food, supplies and thousands of men that those states had provided -- the town declined to participate in Fourth of July celebrations for the next 78 years.

Vicksburg has since relented, according to an announcement published in June of this year that promises: “The City of Vicksburg presents a Fireworks Extravaganza ‘Red White and Blues’ featuring Mr. Sipp ‘The Mississippi Blues Child’. The event starts at 7:00 pm. Fireworks show starts at 9:00 pm. There will be a special tribute to Willie Dixon (July 1, 1915- January 29, 1992).”

Next year in New York, if Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, the Four of July will be less memorable, solemn and celebratory than Adams initially had hoped.  The mayor, who is coming to resemble former Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in his instinctive aversion to all things joyous, has called upon New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to veto a bill that would legalize SPARKLERS outside the precincts of New York City. Presently, sparklers and all other fireworks are banned in the city; Bloomberg’s ban would extend the city’s ban to the rest of the state. Following Bloomberg’s ban on “Big Gulps,” the sparkler ban is likely to prove incendiary. Already, the mayor has been called a “dope” by Fourth of July patriots.

The mayor’s spokesperson alleges that the state-wide ban is necessary to protect the city from terrorists “such as failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, who bought a package of legal M-88 from out of state to help ignite his dud bomb in 2010.” Mr. Bloomberg’s critics point out sparklers contain no gunpowder -- you numbskull.

Congress made the Fourth of July a national holiday about 100 years after John Hancock boldly signed the Declaration of Independence in a large and imposing script, so that the King of England could not fail to see it; this at a time when the King’s forces were violently suppressing an insurrection in Boston.

Samuel Adams’ doom upon those of his fellow citizens who hung back in the shadows and did nothing while the king’s agents were harrying Boston citizens was as scorching as a Fourth of July firework: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

It is the much neglected Samuel Adams, rabble rouser and pamphleteer, who is the great herald and apostle of American liberty.

Just listen to him: “It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

The right of the people to exult in their God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – this is the fire than ran hot in the blood of our political prophets. Let it erupt this Fourth of July in displays of patriotism that would gratify the founders who gave us our deposit of liberty in trust.

“We have given you a Republic,” said Ben Franklin to a woman outside Liberty Hall in Pennsylvania after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, “if you can keep it.”

Amity Shlaes’ Coolidge

Henry Mencken, who scorched most American presidents in his writings, lowered the temperature a bit when he wrote about President Calvin Coolidge: “Counting out Harding as a cipher only, Dr. Coolidge was preceded by one World Saver [Woodrow Wilson] and followed by two more [Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt]. What enlightened American, having to choose between any of them and another Coolidge, would hesitate for an instant? There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, and he was not a nuisance.”

Mencken was mostly right about Mr. Coolidge: There were no thrills while he reigned because he attended diligently and persistently to the sometimes quiet but always necessary and indispensable tasks of the presidential office. “Never go out to meet trouble,” Coolidge advised. “If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.”

While a very good public speaker, Mr. Coolidge was the opposite of a publicity seeking politician. He was no fiery Teddy Roosevelt, still less a world conquering intellectual like Princeton’s Wilson.

In the post-World War I period, the United States was swimming in debt. The national debt, an astounding 28 billion -- nine times the pre-war debt -- was hanging like a damoclean sword over the country.

Enter President Warren Harding, movie star handsome and determined to return the country to what he called “normalcy.” On economic issues, Amity Shales told a group gathered under the banner of the Yankee Institute in Stamford, Mr. Harding’s mind was in the right place, but his wastrel heart wandered. In no time at all, Mr. Harding was swallowed by the Great White Whale. In Washington, it is never your enemies you have to worry about, especially if you keep them close to your chest. Mr. Harding, the crony capitalist of his day, was never able to put a ten foot pole between himself and the beltway barnacles; before you could say “Teapot Dome,” he was up to his knees in friends who “came to Washington to help” -- themselves.

Mr. Harding -- about whom Alice Longworth Roosevelt, the witty daughter of President Teddy Roosevelt, NEVER would have quipped that he had been “weaned on a dill pickle” – had the good grace to die in office shortly after the top blew off Tea Pot Dome. Mr. Harding’s Vice President, “Silent Cal,” armed with the commonsensical prescriptions of the Harding administration minus the peculation, was then sworn into office, and it was the non-show horse who put the roar into the “Roaring 20’s.”

Said Cal, “We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.” He and his equally silent partner, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, proceeded to do just that.

Much like President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Coolidge’s near miraculous political success may be attributed in part to the underestimation of his opponents. His political experience was fathoms deep and, while he saw no need to keep Alice Roosevelt in bon mots, he was a practiced public speaker who knew a thing or two about budgets and, perhaps more importantly, character: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Unlike Mr. Reagan, Mr. Coolidge cut spending, and his persistence in doing so paid rich dividends to the real America, that large and sprawling portion of the country that radiates outward from the insular Washington D.C. Beltway. Applying Mr. Mellon’s “scientific taxation” prescriptions to a post-wartime economy, Coolidge and Harding before him slashed a $27 billion debt to $17.65 billion by cutting taxes and spending, which produced a growth geyser that flooded the treasury with surplus dollars. The abstemious Coolidge won office in a landslide, a clear repudiation of the progressive doctrines of his predecessors, most especially Wilson the World Savior.

During her Stamford address, Ms. Shlaes -- also author of “The Forgotten Man,” a well-received exploration of the Great Depression – was asked whether Mr. Coolidge’s economic prescriptions had in any sense “caused” the depression that followed Mr. Hoover’s reign. She answered in the word most often used by Mr. Coolidge during his two terms in office whenever it was put to him that his budget cuts would irreparably harm the economy – “No.”

Ms. Shlaes’ “Coolidge,” at 461 pages, is heavy enough to hurl at your local progressive but is not heavy reading. In a time in which a destructive progressive resurgence fueled by Barack Obama, the obverse of Coolidge, has opened the door to massive public debt, Ms. Shlaes’ book offers more than a retrospective view of a successful anti-progressive politician: “Coolidge” is a handbook for current politicians who would lead us from the brink of a new depression to the quiet and peaceful shores of normalcy.