The president of the United States — the 34th — is Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hero general from World War II.
Rock and roll is still brand new, Elvis Presley the first rock star and going strong. The four British lads from Liverpool, aka The Beatles, were still in Liverpool. John F. Kennedy was merely one more ambitious Democrat Senator who thought he had a shot at becoming America’s first Catholic President two years down the road.
And to realize that, in fact, we are the heirs of those Founders, and the future is now in our hands.
In short, it was a good moment for Cornel Lengyel to step forward with a serious work of history.
Wikipedia describes Lengyel today (he passed in 2003) as a “an American poet, historian, playwright and translator.” And on January 1, 1958, Lengyel released his latest: Four Days in July: The Story Behind the Declaration of Independence.
Still available on Amazon, if barely, it’s a book my history-loving Mother bought back then to share with her then seven-year-old son. (!!) It’s a bit dog eared now, but I have it still, making it an annual July 4 tradition to read again.
The book is a fascinating tour de force of just what transpired in Philadelphia for those amazing days that resulted in the Declaration of Independence.
It takes the reader through the city’s “furnished rooms and boardinghouses” where “throughout the quiet country town they are rising, dressing, praying, drafting speeches or last-minute statements.”
Lengyel goes on, setting the stage for what was to come from men with names like Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, John Hancock, and more. Lengyel writes:
Some of the men are charged with high expectations; others are doubtful, impatient, uneasy. They are getting ready to play their parts in the arena on Chestnut Street, in a white-paneled room which seats the forbidden first parliament of America.
With troops of the enemy landing on their shores less than a hundred miles from Philadelphia the divided delegates know they can no longer postpone decision on the hard question before them. The hour is near when each of them must stand up and be counted.
All of them surmise that the vote they cast this Monday morning, the first of July, will change their lives and fortunes. It will affect their reputations for the rest of their days. The choice they make can raise them high, high enough to satisfy the hangman. It can also change the course of events in the New World for generations to come.
And change events for generations to come they most certainly did.
To look back at the parade of events and personalities that followed those Four Days in July of 1776 — 248 years ago — is to be amazed, dare one say “agog,” at what was done then, and what has transpired since.
A revolution that defeated the massive armies of Britain’s King George III. Another go-round with the persistent British in the War of 1812. An internal battle over abolishing slavery, which led to a decidedly bloody Civil War of 1861-1865.
Then a reunited country, thrust into various wars through the decades of the remaining 19th and later 20th centuries with Spain, Germany, Germany again, and the colorless yet decidedly Red armies of Communism.
And all the while, putting their ancestors’ hard-won freedoms to magnificent use, Americans rolled up their sleeves and invented the modern world of technology. From automobiles to telephones to railroads and airplanes, vast changes came forth, accompanied by vast fortunes and, for those who were not Astors or Rockefellers, a stunningly large middle class.
The office that would be established in what would become the Constitution produced an unbroken chain of presidents from both newly developed political parties. Elections were held repeatedly on schedule, sending friends and neighbors to the United States Congress, state governorships and legislatures, and more.
So as this latest Fourth of July recedes, with the 250th looming in 2026, it is perhaps a moment to stop and give a thanks to all those “Founding Fathers” who gathered in Philadelphia for those Four Days in July.
And to realize that, in fact, we are the heirs of those Founders, and the future is now in our hands.
With the responsibility to pass on to future generations the same freedoms that were handed to all of us in those Four Days in July.
And oh yes. With a thank you to Cornel Lengyel for bringing American history to such vivid life in Four Days in July.
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