Semi Truths A highly irregular weblog dedicated to Truth, Justice, and American Cheese…!

Got a nickel?

On the front you will see the familiar profile of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, a founding father of the United States, and our third President.

On the back is a representation of his home, Monticello. Jefferson spent the last seventeen years of his life there, trying out new discoveries and inventions, collecting his many books, and writing copious letters and essays detailing his thoughts on this infant nation that he helped create. He died on July 4 1826, fifty years to the day after the 2nd Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the document that he authored and which contained these words:

“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…”

(When studying early American history in grade school, we were endlessly amused by the fact that the handwritten “S”, 200 years ago, resembles our contemporary “F”. To this day, I cannot hear the preamble without wanting to interject “We hold thefe truths to be felf-evident … Life, Liberty, and the purfuit of Happineff“. But I digreff….)

Jefferson died in debt and his home was sold to a local apothecary, one James Barclay. Unfortunately, the Barclay family did not care for the number of tourists and curious onlookers who kept invading their property and they allowed the house to fall in disrepair. Enter Uriah Levy, a naval commodore and a Jew. He admired Jefferson for his views on religious tolerance and regarded the late president as “one of the greatest men in history, who did much to mold the Republic in a form in which man’s religion does not make him ineligible for political or governmental life.”

Levy purchased the home with a promise to restore it as a tribute to Jefferson. During the Civil War, the Confederacy seized and sold the property. After the war and following much litigation, the deed to the property was restored to Levy’s heirs. In 1923, Jefferson Monroe Levy sold the property to the current owners, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

Since 1963, the Foundation has celebrated July 4th with an annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony. Candidate citizens who have passed all other requirements gather at Monticello to take their final Oath of Allegiance. The ceremony begins with an invocation, the reading of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and local Boy Scouts leading the Pledge of Allegiance. The featured speaker at this year’s ceremony was Frank McCourt, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela’s Ashes, a childhood memoir of growing up poor and Catholic in Ireland.

McCourt spoke of his own immigrant experience. Unlike those gathered before him — 72 candidate citizens from 33 countries — McCourt never had to take the oath of citizenship. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, but his family moved back to Ireland after the death of his sister when he was only four years old. For the next several years until his early adulthood, experiencing a level of poverty that we can scarcely imagine, his life’s goal became returning to the “the states”. At nineteen, he set out on his global journey that would return him to New York. He has now spent most of his life in this country, and speaks movingly of his love for the U.S.

He praised those assembled before him for the important choice they had made, and reminded us all that ours is a country of many peoples, of many cultures and beliefs, and that each new immigrant brings with them something important to add to the American experience. “Where would we be, for example, without the word ‘Spaghetti’?” he asked. “Or ‘Lingerie’? I love ‘Lingerie’. I love just saying the word ‘Lingerie’.”

Candidates for citizenship stand before a judge and recite the Oath of Allegiance. They promise to “renounce and abjure … fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty” and to “support and defend (and) bear true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution and laws of the U.S. Interestingly, according to information at the Immigration and Naturalization website, there are cases where the oath can be taken without the clauses to “bear arms on behalf of the United States (and) perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces“.

After the recitation of the oath, a handful of the new citizens chose to come before the microphone and speak of their personal experiences and the events that brought them to this historical place. It is both an awe-inspiring and a humbling experience to hear these tales and understand that these individuals earned their citizenship, and regard it as a great accomplishment. This public recitation of fidelity to their new country is only a final step on a long and often hazardous journey. Because they had to learn our laws, study our history, and demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the guiding principles of our country, I feel that in numerous ways these new citizens will be better citizens than many of us who were simply given citizenship as a birthright.

How many American-born citizens could pass the requirements to gain citizenship? I think our country could only benefit if every citizen had to take a test to demonstrate that they understand and appreciate our laws and institutions. For that matter, I would like to see every candidate for high public office demonstrate a full understanding of world history and the American struggle for liberty abroad and at home.

This recent and ongoing flap over religious dictates in the Pledge of Allegiance demonstrates starkly how much time and energy we waste on the little things. Why do we pledge anything to an inanimate piece of cloth when there are living documents such as the Constitution that require our unceasing loyalty and guardianship? To me, it is a great irony that, as citizens of this great nation, we need not evince any higher standard of competency to exercise our Constitutionally-protected rights, such as the right to vote or the right to bear arms, then we must demonstrate to get a common drivers license. I cannot help but think that we would exercise our civil liberties with greater respect if, like these newest citizens of our nation, we had to earn them.

What do you think? Comment below.

And, for what remains of the weekend, have a safe and glorious independence celebration.

references:

• For more on Thomas Jefferson’s historical home, see http://www.monticello.org/house/house_faq.html
• To learn more about the Levy family and how it was that, for nearly 90 years, Jefferson’s great “essay on architecture” bore a mezuzah, read Saving Monticello by journalist Marc Leepson: http://www.savingmonticello.com
• For information Naturalization Services, see the INS website at: http://www.uscis.gov