ambassador
Ambassador's Speech
REMARKS AT US-ARGENTINA INDEPENDENCES DAY LUNCHEON AT THE AMERICAN CLUB
American Club of Buenos Aires
July 8, 2008
It is a great pleasure to be with all of you to commemorate the Independence Day of the United States of America.
As President Bush said in his declaration commemorating this very important day, on July 4, 1776 “bold and courageous visionaries pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in signing the Declaration of Independence … our forefathers proclaimed to the world that liberty was the natural right of all mankind and in doing so began one of the greatest chapters in human history.”
The declaration set the stage for creation of our democracy and republic, a form of government which the modern world had not known. The call for liberty in North America was echoed in the years that followed in Europe and the rest of the Americas.
Our republic was not created without flaws. It has been a long and arduous effort to improve our form of deliberative democracy. But we have persisted in our efforts to stay true to the values which our founding fathers enshrined first in the Declaration of Independence, and then in our republic’s Constitution.
Many of those same values were shared by those who struggled for liberty and democracy in Argentina. It is very interesting that the words for our two national anthems were written only two years apart - in 1812 and in 1814, and that they were crafted as both countries struggled to find and maintain their paths to freedom and more representative forms of government.
The lyrics of the “Himno Nacional Argentino” were written by Vicente López y Planes on May 24, 1812, after being inspired by attending a play entitled El 25 de Mayo, which retold the story of the May Revolution that had taken place two years earlier.
At the time, it was noted that the political vision portrayed in the anthem was not only Argentine, but Latin American. The lyrics were fiercely independent, as the country was still in the midst of deciding about its independence from Spain.
"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland, by British warships two years into the War of 1812. Key observed the attack while being held on one of the British ships, and kept watching through the stormy night for the sign that the US flag was still flying over the fort, but he only knew for sure that the US still held the fort when the dawn came and he could see the US flag flying.
Inspired by the sight of the flag, Key wrote a poem on the back of a letter he had kept in his pocket which later became the lyrics to our national anthem.
I think that we will find that today, many in Argentina and the United States share a devotion to liberty, freedom and democracy that can bring us together, both as we cherish the values that inspired the creation of our democracies and as we work to see those values put into practice for the benefit of future generations.
One of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, said “where liberty dwells, there is my country.” I think we can all find agreement with that statement as well celebrate the Independence days of both of our countries.
Thank you for your presence here today.
