To the United States of America: Happy 250th birthday. May you always be great
The United States has long been a bastion of freedom and democracy in the world
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
On July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress of the then 13 American colonies unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, severing ties with the United Kingdom and giving birth to a new nation, the United States of America.
The words of the Declaration were of their time and the fact that several of the country’s ‘founding fathers’ were slave owners undermined its talk of “unalienable Rights” – something that contemporaries like the great Samuel Johnson pointed out. In a treatise written in 1775, Johnson asked rhetorically, again in the language of the 18th century: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”
READ MORE: Scottish economist Adam Smith's fingerprints are all over the US Declaration of Independence
‘A promissory note’
Yet its stirring language has proved to be an inspiration to all those concerned with freedom, liberty and democracy in the 250 years since. On August 28, 1963, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, Martin Luther King told the assembled crowd in his famous “I have a dream” speech: “In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
“This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of colour are concerned.”
Over the course of the last century, the USA rose to become the world’s pre-eminent nation, in economic and military terms, but also in science and culture, with Americans winning more Nobel prizes than any other nation, while the whole world watches American films and sings and dances to American music. This is hard and soft power, working in tandem. But to what end?
Clearly, the US has made some serious – and bloody – foreign policy mistakes in the decades since the end of the Second World War. However, in defeating the threat to freedom posed by Soviet communism during the Cold War, supporting global democracy, and backing free trade, it has unquestionably been a force for good of almost unimaginable proportions. A world without the USA’s largely benign influence would have been a terrifying place.
Trump’s America not the real one
Most regrettably, Donald Trump has called into serious question whether America will continue in this role as “the leader of the free world”. His unjustified tariffs are a form of economic warfare that is abusing the size of the US economy, losing friends and alienating traditional allies.
Even more alarming have been the US President’s threats to withdraw from Nato, his persistent warm words about the evil dictator Vladimir Putin – even as Russian forces continue to bomb civilian targets in Ukraine – and scandalous attacks on Volodymyr Zelensky, a modern-day Winston Churchill, heroically leading the defence of his country, and Western democracy, from Putin’s tyranny.
However, we know that the real America is not Trump’s America. We have faith that this great nation will come to its senses and elect a leader truly committed to the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
Happy 250th birthday America. May our ‘Special Relationship’ always remain.
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