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Nations need a founding myth
Ending a revolution
The hardest part of a revolution is bringing it to an end. A settlement has to end the fear, violence, and uncertainty and make sure the country never returns to anarchy. The Constitution solved the problem of the state, giving Americans a government that functioned better than the Articles of Confederation. The nation needed something else: glue that holds the people together.
Myth as glue
Myth supplied it. Any country that lives through violence and uncertainty over sovereignty for this long ends up subscribing to mythic ideas to end the anarchy. A civic history is not the same as an academic one, and a society needs some version of it, especially a country without a common ethnic origin that has to center on a bundle of ideals.
A founding day
The United States can point to a specific day, the Fourth of July, 1776, as its founding moment. Other national identities have deeper roots in the past, or a truly mythic founding moment like Romulus and Remus. Historians note that Congress voted on July 2nd, and the 4th stayed the day anyway.
Why did July 4 stick instead of July 2?
Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, and approved the final text of the Declaration on July 4. The printed copies carried the July 4 date, and those broadsides spread through the colonies. John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 would be celebrated by future generations. Philadelphia marked the first anniversary on July 4, 1777, with bells, bonfires, and fireworks.
How did the founders become legends so fast?
George Washington died in December 1799, and funeral processions and orations were held across the country. Mason Locke Weems, a minister and bookseller, published a biography within months of Washington's death, and later editions added the cherry tree story. In the Capitol rotunda, Constantino Brumidi painted The Apotheosis of Washington in 1865, showing him rising among the gods.
How did Rome's founding myth work?
Romans traced their city to Romulus, who according to legend killed his twin Remus and named Rome after himself. The poet Virgil's Aeneid, written under Augustus, added a deeper legend that Rome descended from the Trojan hero Aeneas. Livy's history of Rome gave the founding story its standard form. The scholar Varro calculated the traditional founding date as 753 BCE.
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