A Letter on Liberty

John Adams was right, but he was off by two. 

In a July 3 letter to his beloved wife Abigail, John was giddy with excitement. “Yesterday,” he began, “the greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, ‘that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.’” In just a few days, he assured her, she would read of the Declaration of Independence, which would detail “the causes which have impelled us to this mighty revolution, and the reasons which will justify it in the sight of God and man.” Expressing wonder “at the suddenness as well as greatness of this revolution,” Adams swiftly turned spiritual:

“It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting, and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have the good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies, and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals. And the new governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or they will be no blessings.”

Anticipating the bloody battles ahead, Adams saw in the struggle to come a means of national introspection and moral improvement, an opportunity for repentance for individuals and the polity as a collective. 

He was not naive. Democracy is a difficult art, America’s future first vice-president and second president no doubt understood. “The people will have unbounded power, and the people are extremely addicted to corruption and venality,” Adams lamented. But hope lay in the heavens. “I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence,” he confessed, “in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.”

In the meantime, it would be up to America’s citizens to manifest their covenantal destiny. “Time has been given for the whole people maturely to consider the great question of independence,” his letter continued, “and to ripen their judgment, dissipate their fears, and allure their hopes, by discussing it in newspapers and pamphlets, by debating it in assemblies, conventions, committees of safety and inspection, in town and county meetings, as well as in private conversations, so that the whole people, in every colony of the thirteen, have now adopted it as their own act.”  

As long as Americans stand firm in their faith in God and each other, sharing a commitment to community and virtue, good-faith debates and most of all the light of hope, there will still and always be reason to celebrate, on July 4th and every day.

If Americans were, as Abraham Lincoln would later call them, “God’s almost chosen people,” built in the model of biblical Israel, they would, like their ancient forebears, debate and dissent, kvetch and quarrel constantly. But, it was hoped, the United States would eventually become its own Promised Land.

John and Abigail were deeply devoted readers of the Bible, quoting it constantly in their correspondence. “The Psalms of David,” John would later write to Thomas Jefferson, “in sublimity, beauty, pathos, and originality, or in any word, in poetry, are superior to all the odes, hymns, and songs in any language.” No wonder, then, that in bringing his short missive to a close, Adams envisioned, in a tone tinged with prophetic allusions, a holiday that would last, like Israel’s own, for centuries.

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America,” he said, still floating high from the colonies having declared their freedom from England that day. “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.” 

Of course, it would be not the second but the fourth of July that would forever be celebrated as Independence Day, commemorating the day the Second Continental Congress officially approved the Declaration, which would actually not be signed until August 2. The barbecues and ballgames would be there, Adams predicted, but also, he hoped, expressions of gratitude to God for the gift that is the United States.

“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 shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.”

Like Israel’s Festival of Freedom, a holiday celebrated for generations in anticipation of an even greater future redemption, America’s Independence Day would point the way toward a brighter future. “Through all the gloom,” Adams concluded, “I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory.” Adams here was lifting a phrase taken from the 58th chapter of Isaiah’s description of God’s shining appearance as he removed the yoke of Israel’s enemies, a reward for the righteousness of a people who had fed the hungry and supported the poor. “I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.”

Though the Fourth of July would come to overshadow the second of the month, Adam’s meditation is fitting for the ongoing American experiment. Errors, follies, and vices still threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us, seemingly daily. Enemies foreign and domestic often darken our days. But as long as Americans stand firm in their faith in God and each other, sharing a commitment to community and virtue, good-faith debates and most of all the light of hope, there will still and always be reason to celebrate, on July 4th and every day.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”