I originally stumbled onto this platform about a year ago when I discovered a substantive community of writers, leaders, and entrepreneurs focused on reading great books. I subscribe to a few newsletters about politics, business, technology, history, literature, and culture and love how it has grown into a thriving and positive place for more in-depth authentic, and much deeper work.

I will be trying out this new medium - no press releases, no staff updates, just me. Straight from the desk of Elise Stefanik.

While it will certainly contain updates on politics, public policy, and the critical issues of our time, I also hope to share my love of history, reading, food, parenting, travel, Upstate New York, as well as my professional work in national security, defense tech, intelligence, education, and innovation.

I am calling it Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

And I could think of no better day to share my personal reflections on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness than the real semiquincentennial of America’s independence.

But it’s not yet July 4th, you say?

Like hundreds of millions of my fellow Americans, I grew up celebrating the 4th of July decked out in red, white, and blue patriotic apparel with fireworks, sparklers, BBQs, parades, American flags, and wholesome outdoor games and festivities with my family - mostly at my parent’s camp on Lake Champlain in Upstate New York (my home district that I represent in Congress today). Over the past 14 years, I have marched in countless parades in beautiful, quaint towns near the battlefields and hallowed ground where American patriots bled and died for our great Republic. Ticonderoga. Plattsburgh. Essex. Saratoga. And I am always awestruck that every year on this day, tens of millions of Americans are simultaneously celebrating with such similar traditions - from small rural towns to big cities from sea to shining sea. Amazingly, these are exactly the cherished revelries that were vividly envisioned by our founding fathers 250 years ago.

But the actual date? A deeper dive in history is indeed illuminating.

It was only when I was in high school when my mother Melanie read David McCullough’s incredible John Adams biography (which I highly recommend, as well as his 1776) and proudly shared with me that the real independence day was indeed on July 2, 1776. That is the date that the Continental Congress declared its freedom from the British monarchy when it voted to approve the Lee Resolution declaring “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that are absolved from the allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” The vote was on July 2nd. It also happens to be my birthday and my proud mom still loves reminding me that I was born on the real Independence Day.

David McCullough was one of the greatest historians of our time and of our providential American history. A few years after my mom shared McCullough’s book on John Adams with me, I attended a speech he delivered during my junior year at Harvard College. It was not hosted by the university and instead was hosted by one of the great independent bookstores in Cambridge, MA, The Harvard Bookstore (not to be confused with the Harvard Coop) and the Cambridge Forum. The book talk took place at the First Parish Church right across the main Johnston Gate of Harvard Yard where General George Washington quartered his troops in 1775. If memory serves me correctly, I signed up at the bookstore for a ticket and I braved the pouring rain that day. The audience at this event was mostly Cambridge community members and very few undergraduates. I’m so glad I went. You can hear some excerpts of the event here.

After the founders voted on July 2nd, it took two more days for Congress to agree on the edits of the draft Declaration document proposed by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman to be shared with the public.

John Adams was so sure about July 2nd as the date of Independence that on July 3, 1776, he wrote a letter to his beloved wife Abigail:

“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminates from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

Riveting, vivid, inspirational, determined and aspirationally beautiful. How utterly American with the divine touch of Providence. Truly extraordinary to read 250 years later.

We live in the greatest country in the history of mankind and what a privilege and blessing it is to be an American.

Happy 250th Birthday America!

Sources:

1. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, “Had a Declaration…” [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. http://masshist.org/digitaladams/

2. Bomboy, Scott, “When is the real Independence Day: July 2 or July 4?,” Constitution Daily. National Constitution Center. July 2, 2024.