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I think it was the March, 1801 day when John Adams climbed into a carriage and peacefully headed back to Boston the morning that Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office as the new president. This was the first true affirmation of the American experiment, the first hard test of the viability of the new Constitution.
Unlike the Washington to Adams change, this was the opposition coming into power, this was a political group that promised to undo much of what the Federalists had done and considered critical. This was the party in power surrendering without protest, to a replacement party ...and all because it was the expressed wish of the majority of the people.
This had never happened before and there was never a guarantee that when the time came for such a thing, the folks in power would accept it. That they did was what makes it possible to say that government .."of the people, by the people, for the people" wasn't just a hollow idea, wasn't just a theory on paper, wasn't just lip service.
VJ Day. The successful negotiation of WWII eliminated three powerful contenders to world domination (the UK being the third, had it followed a different course), and opened up huge markets for the U.S. economy in ways that couldn't have been done without the destruction of competitive manufacturing capability and "good ol boy" distribution networks. If Stalin was stupid, his greatest stupidity was not seeing the huge opportunities in grabbing market share. The winning of WWII absolutely created the U.S. as a superpower. Before that war, there was some potential, but no will to move forward.
I might say the day the stock market crashed, and momentarily, temporarily, the massive flow of all the nation's wealth into the hands of the super-rich was interrupted. The rich quickly righted the ship by extracting every penny from the huge masses of the poor, but it at least looked promising for a day or two.
Yeah, that was such a great day for everyone in the world, wasn't it? The poor became so much better off for the rich losing their fortunes, didn't they?
Yeah, that was such a great day for everyone in the world, wasn't it? The poor became so much better off for the rich losing their fortunes, didn't they?
The poor were not directly affected by the crash. They were affected later when the people who were immediately impacted passed along their losses by foreclosing on the homes and the land of the poor.
I don't think that there is one best day in American History. We have had a lot of great days. July 4, 1776 was good. Also the day that TJ took office and JA left to go back home. The day the Civil War ended, the VJ day, there are so many that we all think of.
As bad as 9/11/01 was for us, it was also a day that Americans banded together to help each other through the crisis, and the way people came together was amazing. So while that wasn't a BEST day, due to the tragedy, it was a day when we forgot our differences for awhile.
But I like to think that our BEST day is yet to come, I try to live an optimistic life, so I'd have to agree with Yeledaf and say tomorrow.
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