Next year, July 4, 2026, the United States
will celebrate its semiquincentennial of separation from Great Britain. As
sensational is the fact of two hundred and fifty years of independence, I think
some objective realism also has legitimate standing.
I present the argument that American Culture
is the result of the colonizing effect of the Empire of Great Britain, and more
broadly, Europe.
I begin with one of the most incongruous, uninformed,
and rude scoldings I have heard from time to time. The phrase “You’re in
America, speak English”, harshly bellowed to non-English speakers, misappropriates
the language with attempt to claim it as “American”. Surely, we have enough
logical capacity about us to realize that the English language came over on the
Mayflower and subsequent ships from Great Britain.
In fact, the colonization of many peoples
around the world by the Empire of Great Britain resulted in English being a prominent
language across the globe. It is not American intellectual property.
The English language did
not spring up from the soil of the United States, it arrived and continues to
live as a colonizing effect within all states and territories of the United
States.
Yet another residual effect of
colonization is that of our Common Law system and, surprisingly, even our
Constitution in which we have three coequal branches of government. While many believe
the idea of Constitutional government and coequal branches to have been an American
invention, I report to you a quote from King George III in an essay which he
wrote in the late 1750s (many years before either the Declaration or Constitution
were composed) …
“Thus
we have created the noblest constitution the human mind is capable of framing,
where the executive power is in the prince, the legislative in the nobility and
the representatives of the people, and the judicial in the people and in some
cases in the nobility, to whom there lies a final appeal from all other courts
of judicature, where every man's life, liberty, and possessions are secure,
where one part of the legislative body checks the other by the privilege of
rejecting, both checked by the executive, as that is again by the legislative;
all parts moving, and however they may follow the particular interest of their
body, yet all uniting at the last for the public good.
This from
the biography King George III by John Brook (1972;
1974), p. 109.
So, we see that even our form of government
is not original to us but is a carryover from Great Britain.
Yet another lingering effect of colonial
times is that of capitalism. The great economics philosopher Adam Smith, author
of “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” often referred
to as “The Bible of Capitalism”, was born in Scotland and was a citizen of
Great Britain.
Even capitalism, celebrated almost
idolatrously in the United States, is an effect of British colonization.
So, from my objective viewpoint, I must ask “Just
how independent from Great Britain are we?”
And it isn’t only Great Britain that has had
a lingering effect upon us.
A
continuing complaint is how people sing the National Anthem. There are many
people who prefer a particular way it is to be sung. This preferred way is
Operatic Style. I remind folk that opera was an invention of Italy. The word “opera”
is an Italian word meaning “work in music”. And while I am discussing the National Anthem,
that melody so cherished as almost angelic, was composed by John Stafford Smith
who was, you probably guessed, British!
If we really want our national anthem sung
in a truly American style, without the residual effect of British colonization,
perhaps it should be sung in one of two musical varieties which did spring up
from the soil in America…Bluegrass or jazz!
Imagine,
Francis Scott Key’s poem set to the tune “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck or perhaps
something by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.
Can’t
you just hear the words of our national anthem to the tune of “The Ballad of
Jed Clampett”?
I
assert that the indelible imprint of the Empire of Great Britain is stamped
upon these United States.
And, as we approach Independence Day 2026, I
ask again…”Just how independent are we”?