The first time we visited Philadelphia, Christmas week of 2018, Trump's intransigence over the federal budget had shut down the city's historic attractions under federal government control. Uniformed security personnel stood in front of Democracy Hall, roping off the long brick building, its adjacent museum and the closed admission tent, where non-uniformed process visitors, give you a free ticket (on days when tickets are needed), and divide all comers into tour groups of seventy.
This year, when we visited the historic district on Christmas Eve, the building was open and no tickets were needed because the tourists weren't that thick on the ground. We still waited, but only twenty minutes.Visitors are not allowed to walk through the building alone. You have to be part of a tour group led by an official guide.
But the tour proved to be fun and informative, and superbly guided.
We were led into the hall's courtroom first and told that the building was never officially named "independence hall." It was the capitol building of the Pennsylvania state government, and chosen for what would become the two most important gatherings in American history because of the city's mid-coastal location. And, apparently, no one called it "Independence Hall" until the French Revolutionary War volunteer and friend of Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, came back to the US in 1826 for a 50-year reunion and said, "Take me to Independence Hall."
The hall, our capable, outgoing tour guide told us, was not an 'American building.' It was a British building, built by the Imperial government that ruled the colonies. It became the meeting place for the "Second Continental Congress," in 1775, at which representatives of the 13 British colonies discussed their grievances against the British government, decided how to respond, and took a unanimous stand. Representatives, including some of the famous names among the "founding fathers" -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin -- spent a whole year there, as a deteriorating situation in Boston worsened and the first battles were fought. For most delegates "The Declaration of Independence" was something of a last resort and universally regarded as a dangerous roll of the dice when it was, finally, endorsed unanimously.
The first of the building's two large meeting rooms, the courtroom, featured three chairs behind a dias for the three magistrates who would hear a criminal trial. And, following British practice, a metal cage for the defendant who would 'stand' trial and face the accuser and his judges throughout the length of the trial.
Our guide, an older gentleman with a gift for engaging a live audience (smiling the whole way, though who knows how many times he has done this) pursued an interactive, 'dialogue' approach with his 70 interested but not terribly well informed visitors. Before the Revolutionary War, he told us, another war was fought in North America.
Called? -- an inquisitive look: waiting for an answer.
The French and Indian War, we told him.
And wars are expensive, he said, choosing a nearby young fellow as an interlocutor -- "you have an honest face," he said, "you'll be the king. So after this war you have a problem, because you're -- what?"
"Broke," the young king volunteered.
Right. So what do you do?
"Taxes."
When the taxes on the colonies came -- Anne and I readied our replies for the next questions: The Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, The Tea Tax, the Intolerable Acts. But, no doubt wisely, none of these particulars were summoned by name by our guide. Instead he went straight for the dramatic crises.
"Three events took place," he called, holding the appropriate digits in the air, "that led to a crisis." He then compellingly narrated the details of the infamous Boston shoot-out -- the nervous, outnumbered sentries, the rowdy street rabble seeking a target for their complaints with the city's occupiers --
on the night the frightened British guards discharged their muskets into a crowd of mocking demonstrators...
Called, he prompted, "The Boston --"?
"Massacre!" some of us chimed in with the
famously telling noun.
Our leader was fully possessed of the details. A couple of British soldiers were put on trial, and were defended, in fact, by Colonial lawyers, including a famous Patriot "who became our nation's second President..." He waited.
Second President!
"John Adams," I called, managing to get the name out before he gave up on us and supplied it himself. How could any resident of Massachusetts fail to insert the name 'John Adams' into a discussion of the Declaration of Independence? ("Mister Adams, Mister Adams," I heard tunefully echoing in my thoughts.)
Then came the famous incident of "The Tea--" ...
This proved the single piece of Revolutionary history most of our batch of tourists appeared familiar with: "Party," all responded.
Our guide was once again full of interesting details. The colonists dressed for this party as "Mohawk Indians." In Colonial days the warring parties would note this irony: Mohawk Indians, the most powerful nation in New England, were traditionally allies of the British.
The third precipitating incident was the battle of Lexington and Concord, described as an 'American victory,' since the British raiding party was obliged to skedaddle back to Boston. Then followed another big battle, called -- Our guide puts his hand to his ear to await a response.
"Bunker Hill." The Massachusetts in me had to come out. The battle of Bunker Hill, in Charlestown, MA, was technically a British victory, but a pyrrhic one (as our guide pointed out), since British casualties were much higher -- their commanders having ordered their soldiers to mount a bayonet charge into a fortified position. It was a battle that made British commanders more cautious in the future, because now they knew from sad experience that American soldiers, however ragged they might appear, knew how to shoot.
Our guide then took us through the date issue. The delegates actually voted to approve Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" on July 2, 1776. It was shared with the public on July 4.
Only then did we move to the second large room in the hall, the actual assembly room where delegates sat and spoke and openly debated the issues that led to the Declaration; and then, a dozen years later, a different body of delegates, met in the same hall to draft the US Constitution. We were queried about the three branches of government, and the election of a head of government known as the "President."
"What is a president?" he said. "Nobody in the whole world knew what a President was." The world had only kings, sovereigns by birth. But the American plan of government would call for an elected leader.
When our expert told us that the Constitutional "framers" drafted the document that still governs us in only three months, it gave me pause. (And we still expect to find the answer to every single question we come up with now there?) My mind wandered as he posed his next question. The states could not agree on every point, he says. When that happens, he asked, when two sides have a serious problem?
"It begins with a 'C'" he prompted
"Compromise!" I realized.
Suddenly we were up to the most famous (or infamous) of Constitutional compromises. The "three-fifths rule" that enabled the Southern states to gain more representation in Congress by counting a percentage of other "persons" whom their "owners" considered property toward their state's population.
And just as abruptly, our tour was over, the heroics of the 18th Century fading in the early winter light as we snapped final photos and exited the famous building.
I'm kind of thinking that everyone in America ought to go there. And maybe more than once. As a refresher course in the birth story, and fundamental values, of the American experiment.
And a reminder of all we have to lose... If we keep on going in the direction in which we appear to be heading.
