Independence and high ideals

This Independence Day is unlike any we have yet experienced. Our country is struggling with serious challenges to public health, economic opportunity, political decency and social fairness. We are a nation established on lofty ideals to which we are still challenged to aspire. We have the moral fiber to do it. First, we have to recognize that there is work to be done.

The American Revolution: history in the rear-view mirror

Our understanding of historical forces and events is colored by subsequent developments not at all apparent to the people who made it happen. We define the good guys and the bad guys by who won. The American Revolution was in many ways our first civil war. The people we recognize as patriots were rebels against the established order, called by their leaders to a higher standard.

My family has ancestors who fought on both sides of that distant conflict.

Staats Springsteen and his older brother Caspar fought in Butler’s Rangers, a Loyalist provincial regiment. They might have chosen this side because farmers in his native Hudson River valley worked land owned by a few large landowners who sided with the rebel cause. After the Treaty of Paris, they settled in the Niagara region where they received land for their service.

On the other hand, Mom’s Powell ancestors of New Jersey wholeheartedly supported the cause for independence: America’s First Family, VFW Magazine, September 2012.

Take time to understand where we have come from and to consider how we can live up to the potential we have yet to achieve.