Much has been written over time about the personal faith of our Founding Fathers, their belief that the hand of Divine Providence was guiding the creation of this nation for a higher purpose.
What is less discussed is the faith they had in the people of this great and emerging nation, people who were looked upon as “common” and “rustic” by their European counterparts, but through hard work, sacrifice and self determination, would carve out of the wilderness a nation that would, in just a few short generations, stretch from sea to shining sea.
As we celebrate the 279th anniversary of the birth of George Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of a force that seemed, but for the protection of Divine Providence, always on the verge of complete and total annihilation, it is important to remember that those who fought for freedom at Bunker Hill, who escaped in the dead of night across the East River in New York and then crossed the Delaware River for victory in Trenton and bled the snow red at Valley Forge, did so, not for the moment in time they were living in, but for all time.
The war for our independence was won, not by professional soldiers and generals, but by merchants, lawyers, doctors, school teachers, freed slaves, and farmers, like my 5th great grandfather who joined the Revolutionary cause in February of 1776 and brought our family to Bulloch County, Georgia after the war.
That faith in the succeeding generations can be summed up no better than by the words found in a letter that was written nearly 235 years ago on July 3, 1776.
After the vote for independence passed on July 2 – we don’t celebrate the vote on independence, but the signing of the Declaration which occurred two days later on July 4 – future President John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail in Massachusetts:
“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.- I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. 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 Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
At a time when the United States barely reached the Mississippi River, it took faith to see a nation that stretched from “one end of this continent to the other” and a nation which would last “from this time forward forever more.”
On this, the day we celebrate the 279th anniversary of the birth of George Washington, the man who lead the newly formed American army to victory against the greatest military force the world had seen since the days of the Roman Empire, let us also remember the faith that founding generation had in each of us, to continue the work they started and passed on to the following generations.
They knew that we would face struggles, and in fact no generation of Americans have passed without struggle, but they also knew that, as Americans, we would have the strength of character, the perseverance, and the determination to pass the blessings of liberty to our posterity. They also seemed to know that if any generation felt they were not up to the challenge, that America was not worth the struggle, that generation could just look back, sometimes not very far back, to the faith that their fathers carried in them.
Adams also wrote on that day, a day that saw independence declared, but not secured, “through all the gloom I can the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.”
It is because the generations immediately before us could also see through the gloom of Communism, Fascism, and Depression that we are here today. Let us have faith in our own people so that, 100 years from now, as we prepare to celebrate the 379th anniversary of the birth of our first President, those Americans on that day say of us that through all of the gloom of islamo-fascism, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, environmental disaster and economic crisis, we too saw the rays of ravishing light and glory. That we pushed on because we too could see the end is more than worth all the means.
This is my hope and wish for us, my fellow Americans, on this day.
God Bless you and God bless the United States of America.