Our American Celebration
By: Jack Wyman
History was made there.
Ideals were proclaimed there. It is the place where fiery debates, fueled by the passion of conviction, helped to clarify the high stakes and the coming cost.
Within its walls, brave patriots threw down the gauntlet of liberty at the feet of tyranny.
Faneuil Hall, in Boston, Massachusetts, is where freedom, self-government, and civic duty met together to forge the American experience, and to plant the first seeds of individual rights and responsibility in the North American soil.
It was built in 1742 by wealthy merchant Peter Faneuil. He later gifted it to the city as a public meeting place. After a fire in 1761, it was rebuilt and enlarged. Citizens gathered to discuss politics and what should be done.
Colonial leaders came there to denounce British monarchy and its high-minded authoritarianism. The Boston Tea Party was organized there, and “no taxation without representation” was first heard.
Here was an eloquent forerunner of the American town meeting.
At Faneuil Hall was also heard the approaching thunder of revolution. In the decades to come, the venerable meeting place would host the cries for abolition, suffrage, civil rights, and debates over war and peace. It is impossible to enter this hallowed hall without sensing one is entering “the Cradle of Liberty,” as it is often called.
On July 4, 1946, a year after the end of World War II, a young veteran of that war spoke at this historic landmark of democracy. He was as thin as a reed. It seemed one strong gust of wind would knock him over. His voice was high-pitched and a bit nervous. He spoke at a fast clip. Having suffered serious childhood illness, he appeared frail but determined.
His speech was entitled, Some Elements of the American Character. He was 29 years old and running for Congress. It was his first bid for public office.
What’s interesting about John F. Kennedy’s speech at Faneuil Hall that evening 79 years ago is the relevance of the themes and challenges he spoke of. They are the same challenges you and I face today, as Americans and as Christians. It is a speech that reminds us of all we have been given and all we must seek to preserve.
Kennedy cast a vision of the true meaning of citizenship in a democratic republic. He began by acknowledging the historic setting. “Faneuil Hall is filled today,” Kennedy observed, “as it has been so often in the past, with the voices of free men. There is no place where the flame of liberty burns more brightly. . .”
Kennedy tied his generation—and every succeeding generation—to the founders of America. In his inaugural address as president, he declared that "we are the heirs of that first revolution.”
You and I are the recipients of the supreme sacrifice and sacred honor of those who have gone before us. The trailblazers, pioneers, and patriots who advanced freedom. As we celebrate, let’s remember how much we owe them. And how precious and often fragile freedom is.
In his speech at Faneuil Hall, Kennedy rejected a narrow view of American history that would leave us the helpless shackled victims of economic determinism. Of these forces, he said, “They seek to destroy our faith in our past so that they may guide our future. These cynics are wrong.”
In his remarks, the young and idealistic patriot anchored American greatness in the liberty of individual rights and natural law. Rights that no government, for any reason, could ever take away, so long as we are vigilant. Read carefully what this future president said:
“The American Constitution has set down for all men to see the essentially Christian and American principle that there are certain rights held by every man which no government and no majority, however powerful, can deny.”
In a deeply divided nation, we should still be able to agree that the United States was founded on freedom, is guided by freedom, rooted in freedom, and has a government created to protect freedom.
This freedom is a right, bestowed not by the State, but by the will and hand of Almighty God. Not for some, but for all. Not just when it’s convenient or popular, but when it’s difficult and controversial.
This is the real meaning of liberty and independence.
Exhibiting some of the eloquence that would mark his future orations, the candidate for Congress told his audience:
“Conceived in Grecian thought, strengthened by Christian morality, and stamped indelibly into American political philosophy, the right of the individual against the State is the keystone of our Constitution. Each man is free.”
The returning veteran of war added: “The cost of liberty is high, but Americans have always paid it.”
Even as a young and untried politician, John F. Kennedy was unafraid to affirm God’s sovereignty over men, governments, and nations. He recognized the moral and spiritual underpinnings of American liberty and individual rights.
Kennedy appealed to the American idealism, individualism, and patriotism that would guide his life and career. He summoned the heroes of the past. The young candidate who spoke at Faneuil Hall that night would go on to successfully lead his nation in an hour of great peril and challenge.
In these turbulent times—with divisions at home and uncertainty abroad—we would do well to remember the transcending and unalterable virtues that have made America great and have sustained its strength and greatness to this day.
The annual celebration of our independence is an opportunity to renew our dedication to the proposition of freedom. To give thanks to God for preserving the United States as the land of the free.
May we remember and give thanks for the brave and visionary men and women who invented America nearly 250 years ago. And for all those who laid down their lives that this nation—and the liberty for which it stands—might live. May their example be our guide.
Let this be our American celebration.
To order Jack Wyman’s book, “Everything Else: Stories of Life, Faith and Our World”, go to amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors or barnesandnoble.com. It is also available on Kindle and eBooks.
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