There's nothing more patriotic than being willing to criticize your government.

On the following July 4 Lowell Mason’s children’s choir from the Park Street Congregational Church of Boston sang this hymn for the first time. It was immediately adopted as a favorite patriotic song.

While the entire town of Seward was abuzz with activity for the Fourth of July celebration, the band shell featured a highlight performance of the day.

On July Fourth, we do celebrate a freedom from foreign enemies that was won in blood, almost exclusively by male soldiers, in the American Revolution and World War II.