Freedom is always worth the fight

Celebrations across the U.S. on Thursday grow out of the adoption by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776 of the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence. From that famous date onward, as the 56 delegates to that Congress would have it, the American colonies were to be considered independent sovereign states, no longer subject to British rule.

On Thursday here in Newsday, as in years past, will appear the full text with  its inspiring words pointing to equal rights for all — a flat rejection of the tyranny of kings and would-be kings. But declaring freedom was relatively easy. Establishing the institutions, rules and principles that would guarantee it was much more difficult. The war for liberty, best known as the American Revolution, was fought successfully on these shores into the 1780s and gave way to years of detailed debate that led to our monumental but amendable Constitution. As we all know from current events, that remarkable document remains a passionately argued and interpreted work in progress.

Given this year’s domestic ferment — also known as a high-stakes election — the aspiration of the founders to proclaim equal rights for citizens free of monarchs echoes across the centuries. The federal system as drafted back then spawned the modern judiciary known as the Supreme Court, the legislature composed of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, and the presidency — three branches, none with a monopoly on government power.

A historic stress test of that system is well underway in a period when the terms “insurrection” and “rigged elections” are in the air.

Recent controversies have exposed the degree to which American governance relies on palpably patriotic good faith, on its leaders respecting not just the law but the nation's norms. Those norms, as well as our institutions and traditions, might require tweaking over time but have mostly served our democratic republic well. Continued adherence to them will allow our government and its officials to effectively and appropriately serve America's citizens, as opposed to insisting on pledges of loyalty to a single leader. Demanding such pledges would smack of the monarchy this nation strove to repel.

That specter is evoked in the Declaration, where it says the British king’s record “is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

Over time, America has tilted against tyrants. But on Monday, the conservative  Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have immunity from prosecution, though only for official acts. It is unknown where the judiciary's determinations of what constitutes an official act will take us in the future. Overcoming the challenges we are facing now can make our system stronger if our loyalty remains steadfast to the principles of the Constitution.

We continue to wrestle with how freedom is defined, just as our predecessors did. That shows the lasting power of the Spirit of '76 — which is still worth celebrating.