GENE THERAPY
Gene Collier says: Happy birthday, America. But at 244, you’ve looked better.
Good morning, America, and happy birthday; you look terrible by the way. You’re only 244, and you don’t look a day over 1,000. I’d tell you to celebrate responsibly, but you’ve already demonstrated you’d almost rather die than embrace actuarial prudence, even during a pandemic.
But hey, it’s not your fault, entirely, I guess. You are descendants of the socalled Founding Fathers and from the historical series of slapstick events they triggered in the late 18th century. By the time they all got together in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, the momentum of a looming cataclysm could not have been slowed even had they wanted to, which, ultimately, they did not.
Thomas Paine had published the incendiary “Common Sense” just six months previously, galvanizing passions within 13 colonies on the idea that there might be a better way to live than as aggrieved British subjects. Paine wrote persuasive prose, no doubt, but it really wasn’t so monumental a task. The entire population was only 2.5 million, less than modern-day Chicago. Furthermore, nine months before “Common Sense,” American and British troops had already commenced killing each other over the question of American independence.
John Adams arrived in Philly with the idea that the inevitable was in urgent need of physical document, a declaration of independence, which at the moment was still not even capitalized. That’s when things got wacky. Delegates to the Second Continental Congress thought Adams was the best writer in the bunch, but when they said, “John, you do it,” Adams pointed at Thomas Jefferson and said, “No, you do it.”
Adams said he would help, but neither wanted the byline because they had urgent, tangible fears. Not so much the fear of being hanged in a public square in London should the revolution go sideways, but an immediate fear far worse — that of subjecting themselves to the editing process.
Jefferson did the final polishing of his momentous and indelible words on or about June 28, history says, but it was agreed that for the next two days, his masterpiece would “lie on the table,” a euphemism for exposing itself to alterations. The final version was said to have been reduced by 25%, extractions including “unnecessary wording,” and other alterations said to be for “improper sentence structure.”
Writers ever after have taken a quantum of solace in the fact that once upon a time, people had no compunctions whatsoever about rewriting Thomas Freaking Jefferson.
And like most writers, Jefferson had another word for what his co-Founding Fathers had just done to his work. “Mangled.”
The document got final approval two days later, on July 2, and Adams even wrote home to his wife that “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. 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.”
Perhaps this is why Adams wanted Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. He needed someone he could trust to not capitalize every other word. What he didn’t realize was that there were no Kinko’s in the area of Fifth and Chestnut or anywhere else in the 13 colonies of that era, and by the time they got the thing printed, distributed and read publicly, it was July 4.
Though the exact date seemed like trivia at the time, the Declaration of Independence thus lined itself up with momentous events in the nation’s unfolding history and sometimes haunting numerology. Adams and Jefferson would die within hours of each other 50 years to the day after that particular July 4, on the very day on which Stephen Foster was born in Lawrenceville and five years to the day before the death of James Monroe, the fifth president.
On July 4, 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee would withdraw Confederate troops from Gettysburg, with 50,000 dead on the battlefield, the same day Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant would prevail at Vicksburg.
When Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of a cemetery in Gettysburg four score and seven years after the document was printed, his eloquence sprang from Jefferson’s work on the Declaration of Independence, which until then was not terribly admired, despite a Festivus-like airing of grievances against King George III of England.
“He has refused his Assent to laws,” it began.
“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to encourage their migrations hither.
“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice ...
“He has ... sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people.
“He has affected to render the Military Independent of and superior to the Civil power.
“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging War against us.”
You know, all kinds of tyranny that could never happen today (snort!).
But Jefferson, as great writers will, sculpted himself a great kicker:
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Sure looked good on the parchment.