Dressed as Uncle Sam, event chair and U.S. Marine Corps Major John Newman kicked off the program at 10 a.m. and Pastor George Dupree of Living Water Full Gospel Church gave the invocation. Members of the VFW Post #2476 and Riverhead High School’s NJROTC presented the colors and patriotic music was performed by the Jamesport Meeting House Chorus.

Photos by Jeremy Garretson

Several other speakers took to the podium, including Greater Jamesport Civic Association President Laura Jens-Smith, Riverhead Town Historian Georgette Case, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Greg Blass, Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard, NYS Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio and U.S. Marine Corp. Captain Devin Lides.

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Mr. Reagan noted that after an American government was formed, “something called partisan politics began to get in the way. After a bitter and divisive campaign, Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in 1800. And the night before Jefferson’s inauguration, Adams slipped away to Boston, disappointed, brokenhearted and bitter.”

But they reconnected through an extraordinary correspondence, not just about the issues of the day, but more importantly about, as Mr. Reagan said, “gardening, horseback riding, even sneezing as a cure for hiccups. But other subjects as well: the loss of loved ones, the mystery of grief and sorrow, the importance of religion and, of course, the last thoughts — the final hopes of two old men … for the country they had helped to found and loved so deeply.”

They made their way back to each other as people, not as political rivals. “It was their last gift to us, this lesson in brotherhood, in tolerance for each other,” Mr. Reagan said.

We should never forget that parting gift they gave us, and remember how partisan politics built a wall of anger and recrimination.

They came back to each other by seeing once again the humanity within each other — from sneezing and hiccups, to Mr. Reagan’s eloquent phrase, “the mystery of grief and sorrow.”

We try to, and often do, live up to the elevated sentiments immortalized in Jefferson’s Declaration. But not always. The belief in those self-evident truths makes America great, but we’re not perfect and neither is our nation. A commitment has to be made by every generation to, in Mr. Reagan’s words, keep moving the boundaries of freedom forward.

This includes being free to have equal justice under law, such as habeas corpus, and that law enforcement officers identify themselves when detaining people. Masked ICE agents offering no identification while handcuffing individuals and throwing them in unmarked vans is an outrage — imagine the Founding Fathers’ reaction to this. They knew what it was like to live in fear of powers-that-be who had no regard for legal due process.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has written: “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.” To sanctify the patriots of ’76 is not only foolish, but dangerous.

Many of them held fellow human beings in slavery, which is, as President Obama named it, “America’s original sin.”

But the genius of the Founders was, as Mr. Kennedy said, to create a template to enshrine American rights in the future.

Happy Independence Day from all of us at Times Review.

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Greater Jamesport Civic Association Sixth Annual Independence Day Commemoration

The festivities begin at 10 a.m. by the gazebo at the corner of Main Road and South Jamesport Avenue in Jamesport and include a presentation of the U.S. flag by the color guard of the Riverhead VFW Post 2476; a performance of patriotic songs by the Jamesport Meeting House Chorus; guest speakers Chief Master Sgt. Edward Rittberg, Command Chief of the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach; Riverhead Town historian Georgette Case; and Greater Jamesport Civic Association president Laura Jens-Smith. The event is free, open to the public and rain or shine.

32nd annual New Suffolk Fourth of July Parade

Hosted by the New Suffolk Civic Association, this parade kicks off at 11 a.m. Antique cars, small boats on trailers, bicycles, wagons, strollers and floats of all kinds will line up at the corner of Tuthill and New Suffolk roads, then wind their way to First Street. The parade ends at New Suffolk Beach, where there will be the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence and a brief presentation.

Southold Village Merchants Fourth of July Parade

At noon, this parade will march along Main Road from Boisseau Avenue to the Southold American Legion.

‘Americana at the Village Green’ concert

The Rites of Spring Music Festival presents “Americana at the Village Green” featuring the Mudflats String Band at the Cutchogue Village Green from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The Mudflats comprise two fiddles, banjo, mandolin, guitar, upright bass and drums, creating foot-stomping original music filled with vocal harmonies. Tickets are $30 for Rites of Spring members; $40 for nonmembers; and free for attendees younger than 25.

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His Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776, went through multiple drafts as Jefferson worked with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who served as the document’s editors.

Where Jefferson’s early draft said, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable,” Franklin deftly crossed out “sacred and undeniable,” which he probably considered too flowery and a bit pompous, and substituted “self-evident.” Bingo — right to the point.

Even after 247 years, these words should speak loudly to us, as our divided country wrestles with itself — even violently, as we all saw Jan. 6, 2021 — and tries to answer basic questions that were first articulated by Jefferson.

Writing in a room on the second floor of a Philadelphia boarding house, he confronted questions like: What exactly is America? What does it strive to be? Who is the liberty addressed in this document meant for? All of us? Some of us? As a slave owner, Jefferson did not intend it for the people he enslaved. But he nonetheless articulated an ideal.

The edited version continues: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

There isn’t a country anywhere that, at its beginning, issued a statement of principle that speaks to all its citizens being equal, to individuals having unalienable rights — including the right to pursue their own happiness. There is an extraordinary amount of idealism in this founding document. Do we as Americans still believe in this?

Happiness as an individual right? Wow. What a way to begin what would turn into a six-year revolution, during which American victory seemed impossible, but ended with British troops going home.

Having celebrated yet another Fourth of July, we find ourselves in the early stages of what will surely be an ugly presidential campaign. It’s already a spectacle. A vibrant democracy hinges on many things, but two of great importance are these: that opposing parties talk to each other in a civil tone and that truth be foundational. Neither seems to be true today.

It’s been said America circa 2023 is in a post-truth period. Outright lies, conspiracy theories, ugly name-calling, stereotyping and backstabbing are political norms. Despite the words in the Declaration, some candidates for the highest office have thrown out “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for entire segments of our society they don’t approve of.

So in this week’s editorial space, we revisit what our Declaration of Independence says, and ponder what its idealistic words — “all men are created equal” — say about the country we live in now and want to live in moving forward.

Readers who want to share their own views on personal freedom and the meaning of the words in the Declaration of Independence, and how they relate to us today, should feel free to write us. 

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