AAA recently projected that an unprecedented 72.2 million Americans would travel within the country during the Independence Day holiday weekend. Of that total, 61.6 million were expected to travel by car at least 50 miles or more from home. This is 2.2 percent higher than the previous record set last year (Diaz, 2025).
Reuters reported that rising costs of travel have resulted in some Americans downsizing their methods of transportation, such as driving a car instead of flying (Oladipo and Markshak, 2025).
We may typically associate Independence Day with summer vacations — perhaps even hotdogs, baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet Toyota. However, it is a fundamentally “political” holiday that marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence by representatives of all 13 American colonies. That document signaled the launching of a revolution.
The American colonies had quite a list of complaints
It may have been decades since many of us have actually read the declaration, so it could be a helpful refresher to list a sampling of the complaints American colonies had about how the king of England ruled them:
- “He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
But wait — there’s more. . .
- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:” (National Archives, 2025).
Declaring a tyrant ‘unfit to be the ruler of a free people’
After these and other “repeated injuries and usurpations” were listed, the declaration went on to state that “(i)n every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people” (National Archives, 2025).
The declaration concluded by calling for the independence of the American colonies. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” (National Archives, 2025).
I grant you that it is more than a little glib to suggest that we would be driving Austin Minis today if the American revolution had not occurred. However, even Canada did not gain full autonomy from Britain until 1931 (Blakemore, 2025). So it is possible that the U.S. auto industry might have developed at least somewhat differently if the Declaration of Independence had never been written.
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RE:SOURCES
- Blakemore, Erin; 2025. “Canada’s Long, Gradual Road to Independence.” History.com. Posted May 28.
- Diaz, Aixa; 2025. “Record 72.2 Million Americans Expected to Travel Domestically July 4th Week.” AAA. Posted June 20.
- National Archives; 2025. “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription.” Accessed July 5.
- Oladipo, Doyinsola and Samantha Marshak; 2025. “Record July Fourth travel expected as Americans hit the road and the skies.” Reuters. Posted July 2.
There is an argument to be made, in light of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, that ever since the Monroe doctrine was started, that the US’ foreign policy has acted in a manner eerily similar to what the Founding Fathers of the US had lamented: the list of democratically elected leaders, or just the legitimate leaders under local laws, who have been directly or indirectly overthrown by US administrations is larger than many would expect given the constitutional foundations of the US itself.
Yes, but as a U.S. Senator once quipped about the Panama Canal, “We stole it fair and square.”
On a more serious note, I’m hard pressed to name a major nation that has not suffered from at least some contradictions between their expressed values and actions. For example, European nations that were once colonial powers might want to show some humility before wagging a finger at the United States.
I suspect that if the U.S. had been located in a relatively small area like Finland it might have developed very differently.
I wouldn’t trade the declaration of independence for an Austin Maxi; but I still really want an Austin Maxi.
You really need help. Five minutes with the 5 speed gearbox trying to find first and you’d be pleading for nice US automatic and thanking Washington.
Not everyone would drive an Austin Mini, others might drive a Morris Minor or Oxford, Vauxhall, Hillman, Sunbeam, Rover models or for some who have bigger wallet, a Jaguar Type-S.
Had the US remained part of the UK, would the Louisiana Purchase ever occurred? How about the continuation as Mexico for Texas, the southwest and California? So many what ifs in all this. Who would have been the Henry Ford is there were just 13 colonies? Would North America more closely resemble Europe with an assortment of individual countries that historically protected their markets?
Or, was the idea that the people that moved to North America going to have the entrenepuliar tendencies as they were motivated to be different from the UK that they had left?
While I’ve always had a love for British cars, sedans as well as sports cars, as to the thought of Americans driving British cars in the kind of numbers that we’ve got for, say, Japanese, founders on one very vivid memory: My (then) sister’s boyfriend’s (now brother-in-law) 1975(I think) Austin Marina.
If there is one thing Don Weiner is not, it’s a motorhead. Proved to me by his willingness to walk into the Erie, PA British Leyland dealership and actually buy a brand new Austin Marina off the showroom floor. The litany of troubles he had with that car are legendary to this day. The passenger seat that detached itself and its rails from the floor. The shift lever (manual) that came out of its socket midway between a shift from third to fourth. in traffic. And don’t get started on the electrics.
And on the day little sister brings him home for meet the parents for the first time? Mom was already livid that Beth had gotten hooked up with someone who was of Polish, not Slovak, descent and while Catholic it was Roman Rite, not Byzantine – and she wasn’t supposed to be dating boys until at least she got accepted into medical school. Our ex-Chevrolet dealer father took a walk out into the driveway to see what had brought his precious daughter the 200 mile trip home, and was absolutely not impressed. In fact, he wanted to take her back to Erie himself.
Don was not accepted into the family until Big Brother showed up with his intended, who was clearly less acceptable than Little Sister’s choice – not Catholic, not even Eastern European, and not in the slightest mood to put up with the parents attitude. They’re celebrating their 41st wedding anniversary next month.
To this day, just the mention of “Austin Marina” starts Beth and I uncontrollably giggling, and Don learned decades ago to live with it. I keep threatening to find him another one, restore it, and drop it on their driveway some night with a big red bow on the roof.