Raymond J. de Souza: U.S., Canada share a lineage of liberty

The American and Canadian flags fly atop the Peace Arch at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Wash. Photo by David Ryder / Bloomberg

Article content

Canadians of goodwill toward the United States — and in the normal course of events that ought to be everyone — nevertheless come to the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence from a unique point of view. If the Founding Fathers had got their way — in the Revolutionary War and then again in 1812 — Canada would not exist as it does today. In 1776 the newly-formed Continental Army, under the command of George Washington, was laying (unsuccessful) siege to Quebec City.

Article content

Article content

The genius of the Declaration is that even those who opposed its particular political project can admire its account of human rights and aspirations of liberty. How then should Canadians think about America’s 250th birthday?

Article content

Article content

Article content

On America’s 142nd birthday in 1918, Winston Churchill gave an address in Central Hall, Westminster, marking a high point in Anglo-American co-operation during the last months of the Great War. Churchill was then minister of munitions and had recovered politically from the military failure at Gallipoli two years earlier.

Article content

He spoke of the entire “English-speaking family united in a brotherhood of arms.” The achievements of America were an occasion of pride in the imperial capital. As to the Declaration itself, “a great harmony exists between (its) spirit and language and all we are fighting for now.”

Article content

“A similar harmony exists between the principles of that Declaration and all that the British people have wished to stand for,” Churchill continued, stretching history to his rhetorical purposes, and including Canada as well. “And have in fact achieved at last both here at home and in the self-governing Dominions of the Crown.”

Article content

Article content

The core of Churchill’s argument is that “the Declaration is not only an American document. It follows on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights (1688) as the third great title-deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking people are founded.”

Article content

Article content

Churchill traces the origin of political liberty and limited government to Magna Carta (1215). Four centuries later, in the standard British telling, the king was no longer observing those limits and thus the Glorious Revolution of 1688 dethroned him in favour of a new king and a new affirmation of the rights of Parliament as against the king.

Article content

Some 90 years later, the Americans, in listing their grievances against the king, echoed the Bill of Rights. Sometimes a revolution is needed — Glorious or American — to keep things the same. Thus Churchill saw the thread of continuity, with Britain adding an empire of ideas to its traditional empire of lands.

Article content

“We lost an Empire, but by it we also preserved an Empire,” Churchill said. “By applying the Declaration’s principles and learning its lesson we have maintained our communion with the powerful Commonwealths our children have established beyond the seas.”