(I am reposting this because it seems like a great post for a Fourth of July weekend.)
American artist Howard Pyle did a series of paintings on the American Revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Pyle had a striking style, combining both romanticism and realism in his paintings. My favorite of the series is the above painting that depicts an American line of infantry advancing at the battle of Brandywine. Led by their officer, the common soldiers are dressed in rags, but clearly determined and ready to fight. A ragged American flag gives a splash of color as it towers over the men below it. The light of the sun seems to be breaking through a cloudy sky. The painting is brilliantly entitled The Nation Makers, reminding us that this nation came into being largely through the courage of private soldiers. Most of them, if they survived and did not die of illness or in battle, would end the War poorer financially then they began it, being paid in worthless currency. They fought their War usually wearing the ragged remnants of uniforms, often barefoot and living off wretched rations. Many of them were teenagers, no doubt homesick and frequently worried that no one outside of their fellow soldiers really cared about the sacrifices they were making for the nation they were desperately attempting to bring about. If they were lucky they left the Army without their health being broken by wounds, illness, or the endless privations they endured daily through the long years of the War.
Washington has been called the indispensable man of the Revolution and so he was; but there was another:   the common soldier of the Revolution. In the movie Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) when a wagon with elderly veterans of the Revolution passes by in a Fourth of July parade circa 1840 in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln, portrayed by Henry Fonda, removes his hat in tribute, the other men he is standing with swiftly following his lead. It was a moving film moment and a salutary reminder of the unpayable debt owed to those men who prevailed in their lopsided fight against the mightiest empire in their world.
I love this painting! I have a print of it on my wall 🙂
AMERICA’S FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
Our Declaration of Independence states the “all men are created equal”. Are “We, the people” committed to hate America because some men do? Before Christianity christianized the indigenous people, the Iriqouis cannibalized the Mohawks read in Francis Parkman’s account of the wilderness. The Aztecs cannibalized 15,000 individuals of another tribe in one day until the Blessed Mother visited Mexico at Guadaloupe and the cannibalization ended. .Are “We, the people” supposed to entertain Indigenous Cannibal Day instead of Columbus Day?
The Preamble to our Constitution is to be celebrated September 17th. The Preamble states that the Constitution is “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”, all future generations. Our Constitutional Posterity are being aborted because Roe v. Wade never bore the budren of proof that the newly begotten living soul was not “created equal” as all men are.
The living witness to and evidence of incest, rape, sex trafficking, fornication and adultery is obliterated into silence to obscure the crimes against women.
“We cannot let them choose because to many women will choose to stay home and raise a family…”feminist Simone de Beauvoir in her book: The Second Sex.
So Margaret Sanger got rid of “useless eaters” and “human weeds”. Hitler got rid of the Jews. Stalin got rid of the Ukrainians. The Ottomans got rid of the Armenians. Mao got rid of his own people as did Pol Pot.
“all men are created equal” in sovereignty, free will and reason with natural human rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Truth; Happiness.
Thank God for America.
Mary De Voe
In Dredd Scott v. Sanford: Citizenship is not the measure of a man. Citizenship is the measure of the statesman, the patriot, but never, never the politician.