As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, WTOP presents 鈥�250 Years of America,鈥� a multipart series examining the innovations, breakthroughs and pivotal moments that have shaped the nation since 1776.聽
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In a few days, nearly 350 million Americans will celebrate the nation鈥檚 250th birthday the way one of our Founding Fathers predicted we would back in July of 1776.
On July 3, 1776 鈥� 21 years before John Adams took the oath of office to become the second president of the United States 鈥� he was writing a letter to his beloved wife and political powerhouse partner, Abigail.
Using quill and ink, Adams began by saying that the day before, 鈥渢he greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men.鈥�
He was talking about the resolution declaring that the United Colonies were now free and independent states.
鈥淎nd of right ought to have full power to make war, conclude peace, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which other States may rightfully do,鈥� Adams wrote.
These comments weren鈥檛 hyperbole for Adams 鈥� he had skin in the game, and his life was on the line.
He had teamed up with Benjamin Franklin to refine the Declaration of Independence before personally stepping up to champion the words written by Thomas Jefferson on the floor of the Second Continental Congress.
In the letter, Adams was both excited and sober about the future of the new republic.
鈥淵ou will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States,鈥� he wrote.
As any student of history 鈥� or anyone who watched Paul Giamatti in HBO鈥檚 鈥淛ohn Adams鈥� 鈥� knows, Adams could be temperamental, blunt and impatient. But he was also brilliant and deeply principled.
He never enslaved a single person, and neither did his son, John Quincy Adams. Twenty鈥慹ight years separated the start of their presidencies, and after John Quincy Adams left office, the nation wouldn鈥檛 elect another president who hadn鈥檛 enslaved anyone until Millard Fillmore, who was a man who owned no slaves himself but deeply compromised the cause of freedom by signing the Fugitive Slave Act more than two decades later.
For more than half a century, the only residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who lived fully by the ideals of liberty they preached were the man who voiced those ideals at the Second Continental Congress and his son.
Many of the Founding Fathers understood that slavery was a contradiction at the heart of the new nation. Jefferson himself called it a 鈥渉ideous blot,鈥� even as he enslaved hundreds of people and fathered children with an enslaved woman.
They feared that confronting slavery too soon would tear the fragile Union apart 鈥� and in the end, that fear proved justified. The reckoning they postponed eventually came, at a terrible cost.
Adams would write many letters to his on-again, off-again friend and political rival Thomas Jefferson on this very topic. But in this specific note to Abigail, he focused on something else entirely: the future.
The part of the letter where he describes how future generations would celebrate our nation鈥檚 birthday almost makes you think he鈥檇 borrowed a time machine and joined Marty McFly and Doc Brown on the National Mall for a modern Fourth of July celebration before heading back to the future.
“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 shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore,” Adams wrote.
Um, right? Did Adams not hit the nail on the Fourth of July head? Granted, he thought the party would be on July 2 鈥� the day Congress actually voted for independence 鈥� but history shifted the date, and his vision stayed perfectly intact.
And that 鈥渢oil and blood and treasure鈥� Adams warned about didn鈥檛 end in 1776. It has been carried for 250 years by the people who serve this country.
The federal workers whose stories have been told in this series include NOAA hurricane specialists who fly into storms. National Weather Service meteorologists who issue the warnings that save lives. TSA officers who keep millions moving safely. NIH researchers racing to understand the next virus. And the immigrant engineer who helped America reach the moon.
On July 4, the National Park Service rangers keeping millions safe on the National Mall are the ones who keep the nation Adams imagined running every single day. They are the modern stewards of the nation he and Abigail helped to build.
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