Civics and Father's Day

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Today, June 18^th, we celebrate Father’s Day, a day set aside to honor and celebrate fathers and the influence our fathers have had on our lives.

According to History.com, Father’s Day was established in the early 1900’s. In 1908, a church in West Virginia sponsored a one-time event to honor fathers in the memory of 362 men who died in explosions at the Farimont Coal Company mines. The following year, Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children of a widower, sought to establish Father’s Day as the equivalent of Mother’s Day that had been established before it. Her efforts were successful as the State of Washington celebrated the first statewide Father’s Day in 1910.[1]

But should Father’s Day extend to our Founding Fathers?

According to Britanica.com, our Founding Fathers were prominent statesmen of our country’s revolutionary period, responsible for a successful Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, and the form of government where representatives were to be chosen by the citizens as defined by the US Constitution.[2] Our Founding Fathers included such men as,

George Washington, Father of Our Country and First President of the United States;[3]
John Adams, a lawyer and leader of the Continental Congress[4] and second President of the United States;[5]
Benjamin Franklin, a politician and inventor who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution;[6]
Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States;[7]
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and fourth President of the United States.[8]

These are just some of them.

Why is this important?

Why do we need to know this?

The Constitution is a living document. The Founding Fathers and drafters of the US Constitution had the foresight to include within it, a process to amend it to meet the needs of a changing society.

By no means were these men perfect. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves even though they realized that slavery violated the core American ideal of liberty.[9] They were aware of the South’s reliance on slavery, and therefore believed that the new country would not withstand an outright ban on slavery. But the Constitution ratified by 1788, contained the process by which the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery, could be ratified more than 75 long later in 1865, and only after a Civil War.

Father’s Day is also a day of reflection. I am not a billionaire, and I’ll probably never make it to any list in Forbes Magazine. But I have something that is priceless. I have the loving memories of my own father, the smartest and kindest man I ever knew. I have a loving family, and for me, Father’s Day is every day. My parents, like other parents, left a legacy of family first. My parents gave me a sense of history, of who I am, and moving forward, what I should teach my own kids. To my parents, it was family that mattered most. My parents had the foresight to know the importance of hard work and education. They knew that mutual respect was necessary to maintain a strong family foundation.

The Founding Fathers were aware that preserving democracy was hard work. They had the foresight to leave a process in place to amend the Constitution to change with the times and needs of society. They were aware that the new democracy was a fragile one. Although they did not address all of the issues of a young America immediately, they left a legacy of country first. For the new democracy to move forward, ideas had to be exchanged. American citizens needed the freedom to voice their concerns in a peaceful and civil manner, one with mutual respect and free from reprisal or retribution.

Our democracy continues to be challenged. Our country is still living in the aftermath of the violence of January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol. Some continue to prevent the free exchange of ideas. They seek to ban books and distort American history. But ours is a government of the People, and we can only hope that with hard work, mutual respect, and an understanding of our history, will our democracy remain intact.

So on this Father’s Day, maybe we can remember the Founding Fathers too.

Be Informed

Be Engaged

Be Involved

[1] https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/fathers-day

[2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Founding-Fathers

[3] https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Washington

[4] https://civicsinseconds.com/?s=continental+congress

[5] https://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/adams/aa_adams_subj.html

[6] https://www.biography.com/political-figures/benjamin-franklin

[7] https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/thomas-jefferson/

[8] https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Madison