Remembering the Fourth of July—America’s Day of Deliverance
by David Barton
This Fourth of July America celebrates its 239th birthday! The Fourth of July is one of our most-celebrated holidays, a fact confirmed by a very elderly John Quincy Adams in a speech he delivered July 4, 1837—America’s 61st birthday.
John Quincy Adams properly reminded the crowd that one of the most important elements of the American movement for independence had been its spiritual underpinnings. He asked:
"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, our most joyous and most venerated festival occurs on this day? And why is it that...thousands and tens of thousands among us…year after year…celebrat[e] the birthday of the nation? Is it not that…the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?"
24 : BVOV
