As residents from around the Washington, D.C., area and tourists from far-flung corners of America (and the world, thanks to FIFA) gathered at the National Mall last Saturday, our lovely hosts decided on an itinerary slightly outside the mainstream: Instead of braving the heat and the crowds for fireworks and the Trump speech, we drove south for a pilgrimage to Mount Vernon, beloved home of the nation’s first president.
Though George Washington was not in Philadelphia to help draft and did not sign the Declaration of Independence Americans celebrate on July 4, his presence was already palpable among the Founders that summer of 1776. They were acutely aware of the coming danger and grateful for the general’s careful preparation for hostilities, and they understood that they were putting in his hands “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
I had visited Mount Vernon years ago as a young adult. But there’s something mysterious that age brings to an experience like this, a sobering awareness of how much has gone before to make today what it is and to draw the contours of tomorrow. As we strolled the magnificent grounds, walked through the very rooms where George and Marsha Washington slept, ate, worked, and entertained, observed the picturesque gardens, and stopped to pay respects at the president’s tomb, I was at times overcome by a sense of grounding, of “coming home” to a past I was not a part of but am completely indebted to.
My gratitude wasn’t limited to those who signed their names to a document tantamount to treason or those who gave their lives in defense of its principles. Three-quarters of a century later in 1853, Ann Pamela Cunningham founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association with the mission of restoring the long-neglected estate. Her resolve took root after reading her mother’s words:
I was painfully depressed at the ruin and desolation of the home and Tomb of Washington, and the thought passed through my mind. Why was it that the women of his country did not try to keep it in repair if the men could not …
Mrs. Cunningham lived on the grounds after the Civil War for the last five years of her life, personally overseeing the beginning of the restoration. Surely she would be gratified at the millions of people who have walked its grounds in the ensuing years and the admiration they express for the effort she led. It is because of the foresight of hard-working, generous women that we can come to Mount Vernon today and “come home.”
Our visit began in a mercifully cool theater where we were treated to a preview of the tour. I was impressed with how poignantly the film acknowledged the estate’s, and the nation’s, debt to the enslaved people who contributed to its success. Many served against their will; others from far away worked beside them not out of compulsion but out of a dedication to the possibility of a future that included them all.
It is fitting, then, that our day was graced with the most American ceremony of all: 150 immigrants from 50 countries surrendered their Permanent Resident Cards, recited the Oath of Allegiance, and received their Certificate of Naturalization, the final step making them U.S. citizens. As we waited on shaded walkways to enter the mansion, these new Americans sat in the blazing sun to the strains of “This Is My Country” and experienced for themselves the weight and the promise to which George Washington committed his adult life.
We closed our Independence Day by watching several episodes of the 2008 HBO adaptation of David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “John Adams.” Seeing the first president through the eyes of the second and accompanying the trembling Founders through the decisions that would shape the next 250 years was a sobering reminder of how blessed I am to be an American. I closed my eyes on the 4th giving thanks for the day and for the tremendous gifts of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Cathi Warren is chief copy editor at RealClearPolitics and a freelance writer.
