Declarations of Independence
May we be granted safe passage
Last night Cathline and I attended the opening of the Hudson Library’s new exhibition commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “The Patriots of Hudson in the American Revolution.” With the brisk tempo of a patriot fife & drum corps, eight eloquent speakers brought the local dimension of the American Revolution to life through snapshot biographies of Hudson citizens who played roles in the conflict.
Even the Revolutionary War buffs in the audience may have been surprised to hear that both Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton came to Hudson seeking support for the patriot cause. Nantucket Proprietor Seth Jenkins, we learned, traveled to London on numerous occasions, seeking a guarantee from the British Parliament of safe passage for his extensive fleet of whaling and other merchant sailing vessels.
Mayor Joe Ferris concluded his lively talk about fellow Hudson Mayor and ardent abolitionist Captain Alexander Coffin by drawing on the recollection of notable Hudsonian William Jenkins Worth, who called Coffin “one of Nature’s noblemen, frank, generous, warm-hearted and brave as Caesar, but withal hot as a pepper-pot, fierce as a northeaster, yet neither rude, aggressive or implacable.”
Oh, would that we lived in a time of such plain–speaking about noble neighbors! Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, the sacred document at the heart of the upcoming sesquicentennial, is full of such earthy metaphors mobilized in service of liberty. Might we, dear friends, imagine just such a faith–full mobilization of speech and deed, at this moment of dire straits in American and World History? Might we pause and inscribe our own personal declarations of independence, not in ink upon parchment, but upon our own souls, as we seek “safe passage” through the very troubled waters enveloping us?
Here is my attempt at such a Declaration, offered in the firm conviction that each and every one of us can and must fill the shoes of Captain Coffin, and be “frank, generous, warm-hearted. . . fierce as a northeaster, yet neither rude, aggressive or implacable.” 250 years after Thomas Jefferson gave voice to his generation’s long longing for political liberty, let us join our voices to call across the wide etheric ocean in a manner that guarantees spiritual liberty, safe passage for our eternal souls as they seek the New Heaven and New Earth.