The French have Bastille Day. Germany has the Day of German Unity. Ireland has St. Patrick's Day. Every country in the world--at least to my knowledge--celebrates their national pride on some day. Countries make a choice as to what kind of day they will use to embody their national pride, and that choice says something about their history and character. America chose not a great military victory, a peaceful handover of power, or the official establishment of a government: we chose the publication of one of the most remarkable documents in human history.
There are many different events that can serve as a country's national day. Some mark peaceful handovers of power, such as Kenya, which was granted official independence from Britain in 1964--they chose this event to commemorate, instead of something from the Mau Mau Rebellion which helped bring about their independence.
Australia, which never had a rebellion, celebrates its national pride by commemorating the arrival of the first British fleet in Sydney Cove in 1788. This is not uncontroversial, since some aboriginal citizens feel that this was the beginning of an invasion, not a new country; some who are sympathetic to that idea feel that the establishment of the Australian Parliament would be a better day of national pride.
Spain also celebrates their national day by commemorating the discovery of a new land, but not their own; the rest of us know Spain's national day as Columbus Day, when a Spanish funded sailor discovered a continent on the other side of the Atlantic from Spain, a place where they now have hardly any holdings. It may represent the apex of Spanish power, but it celebrates a time long past.
In the British Isles, national days have a religious character. Scotland has St Andrew's Day, and Ireland St Patrick's; the Brits have St. George's Day, although it isn't celebrated with the vigor of most countries national days--you'll see a lot more fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day, which celebrates the thwarting of a terrorist attack, and which largely became a major celebration in attempts to gin up anger at Catholics.
Multifarious Pakistan was unable to settle on one thing to commemorate; they have three.
The Fourth of July may seem like an obvious choice to us now, since we are so accustomed to it. But it did not immediately become a celebration--for the next few years, the country was too busy fighting a war. America could have chosen the Battle of Yorktown to commemorate, when General Cornwallis surrendered and the major hostilities ended. Only then was it clear that America was actually going to exist as a country, and strong showings of military might are popular candidates for national days.
The United States of America was not created, after all, on the Fourth of July in 1776; it was not formally created until the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, and that government only lasted 8 years, until it was radically reconfigured by the Constitution in 1789.
The ratification of the Constitution is perhaps the most obvious candidate for a national day, as it was the founding document of the country as we now know it.
But essentially, what is America? Are we about the separation of powers? Are we about the enumerated powers, or the formulas for representation? Are we about full faith and credit?
The governing system created by the Constitution is truly amazing, and has lasted a remarkably long time compared to other republics and democracies.The Constitution is a document with which we should all be proud, as Americans, and a document we should study.
But the Constitution isn't the Declaration. It is in the Declaration, a document drafted by a highly conflicted, brilliant, slave-holding spendthrift, that establishes what we are as Americans.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Declaration is much more than a document declaring our Independence. It is a document declaring the real-world practicality of Enlightenment ideas, a clarion call to take the entire human race the next step forward.
We were founded not based on military might, not based on the arrival of a ship in a port or the edict of a King. We were founded on an idea, and the Fourth of July launched a marvelous experiment in human history. The idea that all men are equal; that we come together to form governments not to control each other, but to foster the cooperation necessary to have a civil and decent society; and that we as humans have the right to continually participate in the evolution of that society, to refine that experiment to the betterment of mankind.
This country is not perfect, because it was made and is governed by imperfect people. We lose sight of our ideals and often have fallen short of them. We must continually work, hard, at this experiment, to prove that people CAN be free, that through free cooperation people can make a better world, unleash human potential and diminish human suffering.
But it is still a wonderful country, and I feel fortunate to have been born here, so that I have the privilege of caring for, protecting, and defending this great wonder of humanity.