While we are watching the fireworks tonight, let’s recall that one of the principal but seldom recalled causes of the American Revolution of 1776 was the Somerset Case in London in 1772. The high court of England ruled slavery illegal in England. American colonial planters panicked, fearing that this precedent would be applied to the 13 colonies as well. Their enormous amassed wealth was primarily in African slaves. Thus, slave-owning planters became the leaders of the American Revolution, as Dr. Gerald Horne, author of The Counterrevolution of 1776 observes. It’s not hard to see why the African slaves and freedmen sided overwhelmingly with the British in the War of Independence and the War of 1812. Indians felt the same way. A century earlier, in Bacon’s Rebellion, white settlers of the frontier demanded more British support for their seizing and settling of Indian lands, a war which England was also losing its stomach for. So would I be unpatriotic if I ask what the United States would be like if the War of Independence had gone the other way? Well, I suppose the answer is, Canada. Enjoy the fireworks! Jeffrey Gottesman