I have zero interest in anything the current occupant of the White House may say this evening. But I do enjoy certain passages about the Declaration of Independence and democracy from others who have lived and worked there. Thought I'd share a few. 1/

First up, Abraham Lincoln and his July 10, 1858 Speech at Chicago, Illinois, sometimes referred to as "The Electric Cord" speech. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/speech-at-chicago-illinois/ Lincoln was campaigning against Stephen Douglas, to become the Senator from Illinois. His speech is lengthy and worth reading in full, though in places his less admirable prejudices are evident. It isn't until close to the end that he takes up the point and purpose of "4th of July gatherings". 2/

I'm going to quote at length this part of Lincoln's speech.

"We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,—with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,—we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity ... 3/

"... we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. ... 4/

"We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves—we feel more attached the one to the other and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. ... 5/

"But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. ... 6/