Rebels One and All

History has recorded a slew of "rebels', miscreants, trouble makers. Many are considered hero's, great historical peoples, today. Jesus, for instance, was considered a heretic, rebel-rousing, trouble-maker and sentenced to death for making the religious and secular leaders quite uncomfortable. Today to many he is viewed much differently. Of course some, over the years, were sent to prison where they belonged, with the reputation they deserved.

But today, Independence Day, is reserved for those rebellious trouble makers that we honor and celebrate as the founders of our country.

We gather together for parades honoring our past, those adventurous and brave enough to explore new lands, fight in foreign wars, sports hero's and local hero's.

Neighborhoods get together to build floats, kid's sports teams march, local school marching bands join in on the parade, and communities gather in support.

And even Heisman Trophy winners get to celebrate their fame, remembering their past success to the applause from the hometown crowd.
But what we are really celebrating, with parades, cook-outs, and fireworks, is a group of extremely brave, and intelligent men who dared to fight against England and form a new nation, with new ideals and purpose. A Civil War before the Civil War if you will, as these were all subjects of England, bound to their rules and taxes, at the time. Guilty of treason by their words and actions, subject to being shot or hung if England got their hands on them.

Historians have recently reviewed a "smudge" on the Declaration to finally discover the word our fore-fathers wanted to cover up and change. They had been "subjects" of England so long they thought nothing of using this word in their new declaration, their new government. After much debate the word was changed to "citizen". Simple enough, sure, but imagine what it meant then, what it meant to the direction, the tone of this new country.

These were amazingly intelligent men. If only the Declaration came with a "handbook" we would have better understood what they intended, the reasoning behind their words and subsequent actions. Fortunately they did leave behind copious amounts of handwritten letters.

For years the phrase "three fifths of all other persons" was used to prove that the founding fathers supported slavery. But a closer review of letters and other private correspondence has subsequently proved otherwise.

As in most cases with Politics compromise was the answer. The Northern side knew that if the Southerners counted the slaves, or "property" as they were considered, their numbers in the House of Representatives would be too great. Their argument -- if you get to count your "property" we get to count ours. If they are free, then you can count each one on a 1 to 1 basis.

Arguments raged and the compromise was to count slaves as a 3/5 equivelent. So it was not that they were considered lesser, just a consideration to ensure that the slavery laden states weren't able to carry too much power.

I wonder why the history books never mention stuff like that? I wonder if we truly understand how brave and forward thinking our fore fathers truly were? How insightful, how carefully they considered and planned for this new government.

So today we celebrate our Independence, our fortunes belonging to a group of rebels who didn't want to be subjects, or patriots, but wanted to be citizens.

Happy Independence Day.