WHICH SPIRIT OF '76 IS BEST?

WHICH SPIRIT OF '76 WAS BEST? The first "spirit of '76" announced the Continental Congress' "Declaration of Independence" from Great Britain, its founding partner, over issues of black slavery, mercantile trade, international banking/insurance interests in its profitable, obdurate thirteen colonies. The second "spirit of '76" presaged the retrogressive "Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877." This white Congressional rapprochement resulted in the South being conceded to the Democrats, to do with their black former slaves--now "freedmen"--as they pleased, without regard to their newly-won Constitutional or statutory "rights," or the then-occupying federal troops which were withdrawn as part of the deal. Thereby, the Presidency was accorded by fiat to the Ohio Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, to resolve the erstwhile election dispute wherein the Democrat Tilden won the popular vote, while the Republican Hayes carried the electoral vote. The third "spirit of '76" featured the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter, former Georgia Governor, as President, the first elected President from the South since before the Civil War, and the marking of our Bicentennial Year. For me, the best of all was the fourth "spirit of 1976," when I graduated the Howard University School of Law. Of them all, my own mattered most to me, with all due respect to history!