On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence UNANIMOUSLY. The vote was 56 to 0. How things have changed in a mere 247 years.

Of course, the Declaration of Independence wasn’t a perfect document. It pronounced all men equal and endowed with certain “inalienable rights”, but it didn’t mention women, it ignored slaves and called Indians “savages”.

[This last reference surprised us, so we looked it up. Apparently, in 1763 King George III issued some sort of edict promising the Indian tribes that their lands would no longer be seized by the Europeans, but rather would be regulated by treaty. Thousands of Indians gathered in Niagara, New York to celebrate this and to proclaim their loyalty to the British crown. It is this edict and the loyalty of the Indians that the colonists were complaining about. (Who knew?)]

We all know (I hope) that this country has done a lot of bad things – slavery and the treatment of Indians were the worst, perhaps, but there were more. Wars in Vietnam and in Iraq, for example. Turning away Jews as immigrants while the Holocaust was continuing in Europe. The Jim Crow laws. Etc. Etc.

As we celebrate our independence, it is difficult not to think of some of these national sins. And maybe we shouldn’t let the mistakes of the past (and the mistakes of the present, either) mar our celebration.

But do we need another Federal holiday (I’d trade it for Juneteenth myself) to remind us of our national sins? I am thinking of a secular, American Yom Kippur. A day (maybe even a fasting day) when all work stops, all establishments close (except for those providing essential services) and everything is devoted to atonement (individual and societal) for our sins:

For the sin which we sinned when we enslaved our brethren,

For the sin which we sinned when we chased Native Americans from their homelands,

For the sin which we sinned, when we segregated our armed forces,

For the sin which we sinned when we segregated our schools……

And so forth.

At the end of this new Federal holiday, there would be a short, inspirational service where all would promise to do better in the year to come.

Now, obviously I have not thought through all of the ramifications of the proposed new National Day of Atonement, such as whether you could create a core of Al Cheyts that would satisfy the vast majority of citizens in a polarized country. But there is time to work out the details.. After all, it took me 247 years even to come up with the concept. Another year or two of project development won’t hurt the cause.