July Fourth, 2015

This is the United States of America’s birthday. Sadly, many people think that Constitution Day not Independence Day is the birthday. There’s an important truth of social science here: countries create government, not the other way around. A nation needs certain institutions in order to function. Government is one of those.

Other countries have had multiple governments. France, for example, has had feudalism, monarchy, absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republic, and variations of them all. It was still France.

In America the confusion arises because it was a quasi-government, the Continental Congress, that issued the Declaration of Independence. It was the tool that the nation used to establish itself. There were other ways of doing this. It is difficult to think of any way that were as simple or as effective as this one was.

After July, 1776 there was a United States of America. It fielded armies, enacted laws, and negotiated diplomatic agreements. — And that was just in the governmental sector. In the west Daniel Boone was leading a major expansion into Kentucky; in religion the country had reached the climax of the First Great Awakening; and in the business sector enterprises were experiencing the first effects of independence from British prohibitions against manufacturing.

In July, 1776 the United States of America had been born.