July 4, 2011 : The Declaration of Independence : Scotland's gift to America.
All over America firecrackers are going off, picnic hampers are being brought out and millions of families are gathering for what they call Christmas in July.
Welcome to Independence Day. Today Americans the world over celebrate the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document which ensured that the Home of the Brave would become the Land of the Free. As a Scotsman who has made his home in America, the 4th of July always produces mixed feelings of pride and regret.
I am proud of Scotland's contribution to America's struggle for independence and to the creation of the Declaration itself, which was loosely based on Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath. In 1320 that inspirational document asserted the Scottish nation's independence in these stirring and unforgettable words:
"...as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
By some estimates as many as three-quarters of the fifty-six signatories to the USA's Declaration of Independence were Scots-born or had some Scots ancestry. The contribution of so many Scots and Americans of Scottish descent in the creation of the United States prompted President Woodrow Wilson to remark that "Every line of strength in American history is a line colored with Scottish blood."
Hence my pride in America's celebration of a nation's God-given right to control its own destiny.
Why, then, do I have mixed emotions on this happy day? Because sometimes my American friends ask me "When is Scotland's Independence Day?" It saddens me to have to wipe the smiles off their shiny happy faces by telling them that, er, we Scots are not actually quite independent - not yet anyway. I have to tell them that Scotland is "devolved" rather than independent. They look at me in disappointment and say: "Gee, but I thought you guys had balls. In fact, we could just about see them, in Braveheart, under all those short kilts."
My Independence Day will be spent at a fireworks display in California, in the poetically-named Pacific Palisades Park, where there is a monument to John Paul Jones, the Scotsman who inspired the American Navy in the nation's battle for liberty. Tonight, as the rockets light up the Californian sky and plummet into the Pacific, I'll be wondering how Scotland's democratic ideals of independence and the sovereignty of the people, ideals which now burn so brightly all over the world, somehow fizzled out in the land of their birth. I'll be hoping that in the words of our national Bard, Robert Burns, "it's coming yet, for a' that".
Meanwhile, wherever you are, have a happy Independence Day.
All over America firecrackers are going off, picnic hampers are being brought out and millions of families are gathering for what they call Christmas in July.
Welcome to Independence Day. Today Americans the world over celebrate the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document which ensured that the Home of the Brave would become the Land of the Free. As a Scotsman who has made his home in America, the 4th of July always produces mixed feelings of pride and regret.
I am proud of Scotland's contribution to America's struggle for independence and to the creation of the Declaration itself, which was loosely based on Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath. In 1320 that inspirational document asserted the Scottish nation's independence in these stirring and unforgettable words:
"...as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
By some estimates as many as three-quarters of the fifty-six signatories to the USA's Declaration of Independence were Scots-born or had some Scots ancestry. The contribution of so many Scots and Americans of Scottish descent in the creation of the United States prompted President Woodrow Wilson to remark that "Every line of strength in American history is a line colored with Scottish blood."
Hence my pride in America's celebration of a nation's God-given right to control its own destiny.
Why, then, do I have mixed emotions on this happy day? Because sometimes my American friends ask me "When is Scotland's Independence Day?" It saddens me to have to wipe the smiles off their shiny happy faces by telling them that, er, we Scots are not actually quite independent - not yet anyway. I have to tell them that Scotland is "devolved" rather than independent. They look at me in disappointment and say: "Gee, but I thought you guys had balls. In fact, we could just about see them, in Braveheart, under all those short kilts."
My Independence Day will be spent at a fireworks display in California, in the poetically-named Pacific Palisades Park, where there is a monument to John Paul Jones, the Scotsman who inspired the American Navy in the nation's battle for liberty. Tonight, as the rockets light up the Californian sky and plummet into the Pacific, I'll be wondering how Scotland's democratic ideals of independence and the sovereignty of the people, ideals which now burn so brightly all over the world, somehow fizzled out in the land of their birth. I'll be hoping that in the words of our national Bard, Robert Burns, "it's coming yet, for a' that".
Meanwhile, wherever you are, have a happy Independence Day.
