Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Chris Bray, a former member of the General Assembly.
Having just finished watching with my family Ken Burns’ 9-part series The Civil War, I now understand better than ever before what we celebrate on July 4th. We commemorate not only our Declaration of Independence—our freedom—but also our pledge of mutual dependence—the civil society that is the United States of America.
The American Civil War still ranks as the bloodiest war in our nation’s history, costing more American lives than the combined total of all other wars we have fought. In 1864, in just 20 minutes at the battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia, 7000 Americans were killed, nearly the same number that died in the entire 8 years of the Revolutionary War.
The Civil War was destructive on a scale we can scarcely comprehend today: over 620,000 soldiers died directly in battle and of disease, and tens of thousands survived but lived on with permanent disabilities. The astounding brutality of the Civil War is a fitting reflection of the astounding brutality of the institution of slavery that it abolished.
In this abolition, the war delivered on the profound assertion, put forth in the declaration presented in Philadelphia in July of 1776, that “all men are created equal.” That assertion, which served as the foundation of our own war of independence from Great Britain, went unrealized for nearly a century, as America not only tolerated, but also legally sanctioned in our 1787 Constitution, the inhumanity of slavery.
Before the Civil War, it was grammatically correct to say “The United States are….” After the Civil War, with no official or conscious decision to do so, Americans began to say—as we do to this day—“The United States is….” We matured from a theoretical nation to a real, singular nation.
In the Civil War, we tested the idea that individual liberty is paramount, and we discovered instead that individual liberty can only be guaranteed through mutual dependence—for the ability of any entity to take liberty from any one of us is equivalent to taking the liberty of all of us.
Now, 230 years after the Revolution and 150 years after the close of the Civil War, let us ask ourselves on this July 4th to remember what our predecessors bought so very dearly for us: liberty, not just for some, but for all.
Perhaps one day on July 4th, or on some other newly minted holiday, we will celebrate a Declaration of Interdependence. If we do, we will capture the reality that life is more fully enjoyed in company—with family and friends, in fellowship and communities, and as states and one great nation.
May God bless America.
