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These are the times that try men’s souls.
So wrote Thomas Paine in the bitter cold of December 1776. Paine had joined General George Washington’s ragged Continental Army in Pennsylvania following a string of defeats and retreats.
Paine knew well the desperate situation. Supplies were low. Morale was lower. Most soldiers who did not desert would finish their military commitment at the end of the month, and were in no hurry to re-enlist. The British camped across the river in New Jersey, with likely only one battle remaining between them and a decisive victory over their rebellious colonies.
Fewer than six months before, 56 men had signed away their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Now all seemed lost for the fledgling country.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Paine’s stirring words were read to the Continental Army as they boarded rickety rowboats on Christmas night. Washington’s risky battle plan required his army to cross the ice-filled Delaware River in the middle of a blinding snowstorm. Thanks to the protection of Divine Providence, the Americans made it across. The ensuing victories in Trenton and Princeton kept the American dream alive.
On Independence Day, conservatives like us enjoy looking back at those 56 men in Philadelphia. Today, we will admire their courage and sacrifice. And for the next 364 days, we will bemoan the state of our country, our leaders, and the direction they take us, as if America has never faced dark days before.
America is not great today because of the eloquence of Thomas Jefferson and others, the military genius of George Washington, or the wisdom of those who fashioned a Constitution and government never before seen in the history of man. America is great because every time we have faced a challenge, we have overcome it.
America has conquered challenges that dwarf those before us today: a revolution against the most powerful army on earth; a bloody civil war that pitted brother against brother; a great depression; two wars that ravaged the globe; a cold war with nuclear weapons on a hairtrigger. Our economy has been worse – look at the 1930s or the 1890s. Our leaders have been worse – for hubris, look to Jackson; for incompetence, look to Buchanan; for liberalism, look to Franklin Roosevelt. Yet America still stands today as the greatest country on earth.
On this Independence Day, celebrate the courage of the Founding Fathers. But also remember the dark days, and the victories that followed.
Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin in Independence Hall on the day the Declaration of Independence was signed:
I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.
These times in which we live also try men’s souls. But like the American heroes of the past, we will emerge in glorious triumph. One day soon, we again will see “Morning in America.”
