On this Fourth of July in the Connecticut town where I live, a small group of residents, many of them veterans, gathered on the green to read aloud the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.
This solemn and salutatory ritual serves as a reminder that if we want to know what America is all about, the Declaration, rather than the U.S. Constitution, is the place to start.
For America, Independence Day has always had a symbolic importance that Constitution Day lacks. July 4 has been selected as the date for any number of historically important events in U.S. history: the start of the American bombing campaign against Nazi-occupied Europe in 1942, for instance, and the effective date of the abolition of slavery in New York state in 1827.