Thoughts on the eve of America’s Semiquincentennial
Published 1:30 am Monday, December 29, 2025
DEAR READER: This is the dawn of America’s Semiquincentennial. Luckily, I had three years of Latin, starting in ninth grade only 67 years ago, which means I am semi-capable of explaining semiquincentennialism.
Even if you missed out on wearing a bedsheet toga to a rowdy Latin Club Banquet and catapulting olives at our teacher, Mrs. Wacker, you probably understand a few memorable Latin phrases, such as Julius Caesar’s boast, Veni, vidi, vici. Semiquincentennial, on the other hand, is an obscure mouthful. Pay close attention as I parse it for you: semi means half, quin is five, and centennial is a hundred years. In other words, semiquincentennial adds up to half of 500 years. Thus, 2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence advanced the notion that certain truths are “self-evident,” notably that “all men are created equal.” At the time, it went without saying that women, slaves, indentured servants and “Indian Savages” were not. Rome, after all, wasn’t built in a day. In 1776, all the men at least were “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John and Samuel Adams and the other guys who signed the Declaration — notably John Hancock, who wrote his name real big — were taking a huge risk by calling the King of England a tyrant. We’re talking real sedition, not some Trumped-up notion that it’s treasonous to point out what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says about unlawful orders. Had England won the war, the signers would have been summarily strung up to the rata-tat-tat of Redcoat drums. They were putting their lives on the line. So too my sixth great-grandfather, Archelaus Hughes, a colonel in the Virginia Militia during the Revolutionary War. I was delighted to discover his portrait in the Library of Congress. He looks every inch the young rebel, with rakish hair and those sky-blue Celtic eyes.
THE PATRIOTS who signed the Declaration minced no words in advancing a laundry list of grievances calculated to make King George III livid. Here are just a few:
“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”
“He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.”
Any King like that “is unfit to be the ruler of a free people,” the Founders charged. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Thomas Paine, who enlisted in the Continental Army, is famous for writing, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” He also wrote, “… I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.”
Hard to believe he wrote that 250 years ago. It seems so topical.
AMONG MY FRIENDS is a Christian family man of impeccable character. He is disappointed that I cannot grasp that our President — though admittedly sometimes “a bit rash,” as he puts it — is doing the Lord’s work in restoring “conservative” values.
Mysterious are these ways.
To me, the words and legacy of Barry Goldwater, who wrote the book on the modern conservative movement, are instructive. Yet if you had told me in 1964 – when I was 21 and poised to cast a slam-dunk vote for Lyndon B. Johnson – that I would one day write a column in praise of Barry Goldwater, I would have been incredulous. I viewed Goldwater as the handmaiden of the John Birch Society (which in truth he belittled), famously eager to lob a hand grenade into the Men’s Room at the Kremlin. LBJ warned we would be on the eve of destruction if Goldwater won. I have learned a lot about the true measure of the man in the decades since. And in 1983, I was privileged to be introduced to the Arizonan by our U.S. senator, Slade Gorton, during a visit to the Capitol. I found Goldwater to be gracious and eloquently plain-spoken.
Goldwater’s most famous statement is his rousing defense of his alleged “reckless extremism.” Accepting the Republican Party’s 1964 presidential nomination, he declared:
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Most (me included until l looked it up) have forgotten what he said next:
“The beauty of the very system we Republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize — the beauty of this Federal system of ours — is in its reconciliation of diversity with unity. We must not see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so long as they are not inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our Constitution.
“Our Republican cause is not to level out the world or make its people conform in computer regimented sameness. Our Republican cause is to free our people and light the way for liberty throughout the world. Ours is a very human cause for very humane goals. …”
Also, for the record, Goldwater vowed at the beginning of his speech that America would not “cringe before the bully of communism.” Now we’re talking conservatism!
BARRY GOLDWATER DIED at 89 in 1998. From other statements in defense of the Constitution and American exceptionalism we can surmise what he might have to say about the Trump Administration’s version of “conservatism.”
Goldwater was a proponent of immigration reform, calling for a comprehensive review of existing statutes. He backed legislation allowing families to be reunited, and supported “Fair Share” refugee resettlement programs.
I hope you remember that during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump ordered Republicans in Congress to reject a bipartisan border security proposal, lest any credit accrue to the Biden Administration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell surrendered, his humiliation palpable. Goldwater would not have backed down.
I also believe that Goldwater, a decorated World War II pilot, would be appalled at the way Trump has besmirched the bravery of John McCain, his U.S. Senate successor. Trump (like fellow narcissist Bill Clinton) sat out the Vietnam War on leafy college campuses thanks to deferments, while U.S. Navy Capt. McCain — severely injured when shot down — was being tortured at the notorious “Hanoi Hilton” POW prison.
“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot … shrink from the service of their country,” Thomas Paine observed.
Nor would Goldwater stay silent while a President played patty-cake with a thug like Vladimir Putin, as ruthless as Stalin and busy murdering Ukrainian civilians – including nine children on a playground – in a war of naked aggression.
And what would USAF Major General Goldwater think of our willingness to sell advanced fighter jets to a Saudi Prince whom U.S. intelligence agencies believe sanctioned the murder and dismemberment of a pesky journalist?
Doubtless, Goldwater would blanch, too, at the Commander in Chief’s woeful ignorance of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. As a 21-year-old sergeant in 1965, I knew more about lawful and unlawful orders than our 79-year-old President knows today.
And how about gays in the military? Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of Defense (oops, War!) and apostle of Rambo Manhood, has said that’s part of a “Marxist” agenda to prioritize social justice over combat readiness.
In 1993, during the debate over Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Goldwater said it was “just plain dumb” for Republicans to oppose gays and lesbians in our armed forces.
“The Republican Party should stand for freedom and only freedom,” the former senator said in an interview with a national gay and lesbian magazine. Earlier, in a Washington Post column, Goldwater said, “You don’t need to be ‘straight’ to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.”
In 1984, Goldwater, Slade Gorton, Dan Evans and Oregon’s Mark Hatfield, a devout Baptist, were among the 18 Senate Republicans who helped defeat Reagan’s proposed constitutional amendment on organized spoken school prayer. They maintained it would circumvent the First Amendment’s prohibition of an establishment of religion. Goldwater went on to express his disgust for right-wing religious leaders co-opting conservatism: “There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of those political preachers … raising big money on God. I don’t believe in that. It’s not a very religious thing to do.”
Amen to that. When we reflect on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I pray that in 2026 our polarized country will embrace the self-evident truths that make us free.
Here’s to a happier new year.
John C. Hughes was chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State for 17 years after retiring as editor and publisher of The Daily World in 2008.
