Jeb Bladine: Constitutional ideals gain holiday importance
President Donald Trump in January ordered a suspension of asylum access at the southern U.S. border. On Wednesday, July 2, a U.S. District Court judge from Washington, D.C., declared Trump’s January asylum order lacking in constitutional or legal authority.
Two days earlier, Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to stop individual federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions against policies produced by the Executive Branch. Prior to that ruling, federal judges had issued nationwide injunctions asserting unconstitutionality of various Trump Administration policies, including those affecting birthright citizenships, a spending freeze on USAID programs and retaliatory targeting of law firms for political reasons.
With that as background, what better time than this Fourth of July week to consider the most important meanings of this national holiday.
July 4, 1776, the legal birthday of U.S. self-government, marks the adoption of the Declaration of Independence from British rule. That early Continental Congress action created the foundations of a U.S. Constitution adopted 12 years later: human rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;” limits on government powers; popular sovereignty proscribing kings, queens or foreign powers; consent of the people.
The principles of the Declaration of Independence included freedom from tyranny and a demand for civil liberties. Those principles evolved into the freedoms of speech, religion, press, association, assembly, due process, redress of grievances and more in the Bill of Rights, those first 10 constitutional amendments adopted in 1791.
The Constitution, as continually interpreted by the courts, has evolved into intricate systems of checks and balances through separation of powers. And more than just a view of the past, those interpretations are part of a continuing pursuit of equality and justice.
In early decades, Fourth of July celebrations were city affairs with bonfires, parades and fireworks, often punctuated by partisan political speeches. It grew in national status, finally declared an official federal holiday in 1870. More speeches, concerts, community feasts and rallies.
The 20th and 21st centuries expanded the July 4 holiday with huge public events, military bands, national media broadcasts and, closer to home, backyard barbecues, local concerts and flag displays.
Often, those pursuits of personal enjoyment far surpass the more somber reflections on democracy, freedom and the moral principles of our U.S. Constitution. This year of 2025 may produce more such reflection than the norm, but imagine how this annual holiday might unfold when it arrives at its 250th birthday party in 2026.
These, indeed, are perilous times in the pursuit of liberty and freedom from unlimited government powers. That’s no reason to eliminate the festive activities we enjoy as rewards in a land of the free, but reason enough to continue asking each other when and how we will resist a growing American autocracy.
We might even remember the words of James Madison written in the Federalist Papers No. 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.
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