Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.1
This Fourth of July marks 249 years since the Declaration of Independence was adopted. In that document, the American colonies laid out their cause before the world, asserting not just their separation from Britain but a bold new political vision. Like many worthwhile documents, it appealed simultaneously to revolutionary ideals and conservative principles. Even in Britain—the very nation from which the colonies were severing ties—many sympathized with these kindred Americans, recognizing in them and their cause familiar appeals to liberty and law.2 Yet, sympathy alone could not avert the path to war.
What, then, was the true meaning of the Revolution?
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom!” wrote John Adams in 1777. “I hope you will make a good Use of it.”3 Adams, along with other founders, saw the Revolution not simply as a moment of rebellion but as the foundation of an enduring experiment in self-government. Later leaders echoed that vision of liberty. Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the United States and a veteran of the Revolutionary War, lauded his countrymen in his farewell address as “the guardians of freedom…[for] the human race.” James Polk, the 11th president, hailed the U.S. system as “the most admirable and wisest system of well-regulated government among men ever devised by human minds.”4
From its beginning, the United States was seen as a symbol of liberty. The American zeal for liberty was pronounced from its birth. “The birthday of a new world is at hand,” wrote Thomas Paine in Common Sense, envisioning a future in which a free people, governed by reason and consent, would shape their own destiny.5 In an age of monarchies and aristocracy, a republic where power flowed from the people was extraordinary. In this new republic, there was no king—each citizen, in a sense, wore a crown.
The Fourth of July became more than a date; it became a defining and celebrated ritual of American identity. “There are but few places in the Union, where, in proportion to means and population, the day is celebrated with more lively enthusiasm,” one North Carolinian editor bragged about the Fourth in 1849. Senator Stephen R. Mallory of Florida ramped up the celebratory and triumphal rhetoric about the day’s meaning when he proclaimed in 1859 that it was not “possible for this country to pause in its career than for the free and untrammeled eagle to cease to soar.” The sense of grandeur and glory was laid thick by these preachers about what the country stood for. It would therefore be all the more ironic that two years after Mallory’s utterance, he was the secretary of the navy of a government—the Confederacy—at war with the Union.6
Such ironies reveal a deeper truth: while all profess devotion to liberty, not all mean the same thing by it. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, understood this well when he declared:
We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor.7
In his time, the nation settled that conflict with the abolition of slavery—one step closer to fulfilling the promise of the Declaration “that all men are created equal.”8
But these are questions of the 19th century. Are there no links between then and our own time? The concerns that animated figures like Lincoln and Mallory—about the meaning of liberty, the concentration of power, the corruption of public institutions, and the role of citizens in shaping their own government—still echo today.
This May, the grandson of John Tyler—the 10th president of the United States—passed away.9 That event, though remarkable in its span across American history, received little public attention. To be fair, John Tyler is not a widely remembered figure. His name is best recalled through the old Whig campaign slogan: “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.”10
Born in 1790, just a few years after the Revolution, Tyler cast himself as part of the "Old Republican" tradition. This ideology argued for a strict interpretation of the Constitution and tended to look askew on wealth and growth as prospective inducements to decadence and corruption.
They argued in Congress and in columns of newspapers such as the Richmond Enquirer that the tariff, bank, and internal improvements11 measures would stimulate commercial interests unduly, undermine agriculture, centralize power in the federal government, and violate the Constitution…For some Americans, government aid to internal improvements…threatened to alter the delicate social and economic balance that had so far staved off corruption, by creating huge private fortunes, large cities filled with penniless laborers, and mammoth corporations lacking all human sympathy and conscience.12
Tyler’s selection as vice president on the Whig national ticket was more of a sectional and ideological balancing act by the party than his alignment with the party bigwigs like Henry Clay.13
When President William Henry Harrison died just one month into his term from pneumonia, Tyler assumed the presidency—despite some objections over the constitutional legitimacy of his succession. In doing so, he set a crucial precedent: that the vice president fully assumes the presidency upon the president’s death. Tyler's term was fraught. His Old Republican principles put him at odds with his own party, and the Whigs eventually effectively expelled him from their ranks.14 In his disdain for the party apparatus, Tyler was following George Washington’s injunction against political parties.15
One of his most lasting actions was advancing the annexation of Texas—done in the final days of his presidency and without Whig support.16 Are we so distant from the past that the Old Republicans’ concerns are no longer resonate? Are urban challenges, the concentration of wealth and influence, and the corrosive effects of blind party loyalty no longer relevant? This is not to suggest we must adopt Tyler’s answers.17 Rather, we should recognize both the changes and continuities in American politics.
All rituals evoke memory and emotion. Independence Day is no exception. It links the present generation to the founding moment of the United States and invites reflection on the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Does our government today still derive its just powers from the consent of the governed? Does our society live up to the ideals of liberty, equality, and self-rule?
In an age marked by division and disillusionment, the nation is in need of renewed purpose. To form a more perfect Union requires not only historical awareness but civic responsibility. The Constitution’s amendment process—once used to abolish slavery—is proof that the Founders’ system can adapt while preserving its core ideals. It is our duty as citizens to carry forward the torch of historical memory, to see that its flame is not extinguished, but passed on. In doing so, we preserve not just the country, but our shared future.
Declaration of Independence: A Transcription. (1776). National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.
For support and sympathy for the American cause in Great Britian, see Phillips, K. (1999). The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, & The Triumph of Anglo America. Basic Books, 234-268.
Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 April 1777. (1777, April 26). Massachusetts Historical Society. https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17770426ja.
Potter, D.M., & Fehrenbacher, D.E. (1976). The Impeding Crisis: America Before The Civil War 1848-1861. Harper Perennial, 11.
Paine, T. (1776). Common Sense. https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-paine-common-sense-pamphlet.
Potter, D.M., & Fehrenbacher, D.E. (1976). The Impeding Crisis, 14.
Lincoln, A. (1864, April 18). Address at Sanitary Fair in Baltimore: A Lecture on Liberty. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-sanitary-fair-baltimore-lecture-liberty.
Declaration of Independence: A Transcription. (1776). National Archives.
Treisman, R. (2025, May 29). Harrison Ruffin Tyler, grandson of President Tyler, dies at 96. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5415207/president-tyler-grandson-harrison-ruffin-tyler.
Storm, T. (2020). Tippecanoe and Tyler Who? A Brief History of Presidential Campaign Songs. San Diego Troubadour. https://sandiegotroubadour.com/tippecanoe-and-tyler-who-a-brief-history-of-presidential-campaign-songs/.
The term refers to state-sponsored investments into infrastructure like roads and canals.
Watson, H.L. (2006). Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America. Hill and Wang, 61-62, 214.
Ibid., 214-215.
Ibid., 227-28.
“However [political] combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion,” Washington said. See Washington, G. (1796). Farewell Address. National Constitution Center. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/george-washington-farewell-address-1796.
Watson, H.L. (2006). Liberty and Power, 230. It was under Polk that the annexation formally occurred. See Winders, R.B. July 4th: Independence and Annexation. The Alamo. Retrieved on July 1, 2025, from https://www.thealamo.org/remember/military-occupation/independence-and-annexation.
Tyler ended his days working for the Confederacy. See White House Historical Association. John Tyler: 10th President Of The United States. The White House. Retrieved on July 1, 2025, from https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/john-tyler/.
Well said and thank you! Another thought provoking read. Happy 4th!