WILLIAM BENNETT, JOSEPH BENNETT: What the Fourth of July really asks of us
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There’s a mentality that built this country: being willing to risk everything for things you can’t see. This is the foundation’s fundamental lesson. The founders called this virtue and risked their lives for it; They pledged their sacred honor with firm confidence in divine Providence. Two hundred and fifty years ago a group of men put their names to a declaration that could have been their death sentence because they believed that men could rule themselves and that no king had the inherent right to rule them.
Facing the colonies stood the world’s largest empire: a professional army of more than 50,000 British regulars and hired Hessians, hundreds of cannons and the world’s most powerful navy. Against this: a disorganized Continental Army composed of farmers and merchants, numbering no more than ten to fifteen thousand, poorly trained, a fraction of the artillery, and without a fleet capable of countering the Royal Navy. It was absurd in every way that they could defeat this machine. But Washington—no more so than on the night he crossed the icy Delaware to attack Trenton—proved the point: Genius and indomitable will, not numbers, saved the day.
We remember Washington. We should also forget about those around him. Among them was Billy Lee, an enslaved Black man who was much more than a servant. He participated with Washington in the most intense moments of the war and became one of his most trusted confidants, standing by his side at every turn of the war, from the crossing of the Delaware to Yorktown.
AMERICA’S NEXT 250 YEARS DEPEND ON PASSING FAITH AND FREEDOM TO OUR CHILDREN
Washington himself was a slave owner; yet alone among our founding presidents, he freed the people he had enslaved in his will; He immediately released Lee with a lifetime pension. Although he was free to leave, Lee chose to spend his days at Mount Vernon, a measure of how close the two men had become. That the first President’s closest friend was a man he had once enslaved is one of the most extraordinary facts about our founding, and it survives only as a footnote in our textbooks.
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This nation was born with extraordinary courage and, like everything built by human hands, is flawed. But he never stopped trying. At Gettysburg, with the country nearly torn in two by the horrors of slavery, Lincoln called a blood-soaked nation back to its original proposition that all men are created equal and to the work of living up to it. The Republic has endured and endured much darker hours than these. Following the example of Washington and Lincoln, we march toward greater progress, equality, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
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So this 4th of July, whatever your party or lineage, remember those who risked everything so that we could govern ourselves rather than be ruled by kings. Remember how much it costs. Be determined to be worthy of the legacy, its flaws, its greatness, and the unfinished work it left us. This is the legacy of a father and son, written together, and passed from one generation to the next.
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Joseph Bennett is a Marine Corps veteran and principal of Fabius Group, a strategic consulting firm in the defense industry. He lives in Washington, DC and is a graduate of Princeton University.
