You walked in and the door was heavy and the heavy was the threshold. The tavern was the oldest public room in America. The tavern was older than the country. The tavern was where the country was invented because the men who invented the country needed a place to sit and drink and argue and the tavern was the place. The tavern had a bar and the bar was a plank of wood and the plank of wood was the altar of American democracy because the plank of wood was where the farmer stood next to the lawyer and the standing next to was the equality that the Constitution would later attempt to describe in language that never worked as well as a bar.

The Green Dragon Tavern in Boston was where the Sons of Liberty planned the Boston Tea Party in seventeen seventy three. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere and John Hancock sat in the Green Dragon and decided to throw three hundred and forty two chests of tea into Boston Harbor and the deciding to throw tea into a harbor was the revolution that began in a tavern. Fraunces Tavern in New York was where George Washington said goodbye to his officers on December fourth seventeen eighty three and the saying goodbye in a tavern was the tradition because the tavern was the room where every important American conversation happened before there were rooms designed for important American conversations. City Tavern in Philadelphia was where the delegates to the Constitutional Convention ate and drank after debating the future of the republic and the eating and drinking after debating was the lubrication and the lubrication was the compromise because men who have shared a bottle of Madeira are more likely to find common ground than men who have not. By eighteen hundred there was one tavern for every hundred Americans and the one for every hundred was the density and the density meant you were never more than a short walk from a place where someone would pour you a drink and listen to your opinion about the government.

The tavern was the first American hotel and the first American restaurant and the first American post office and the first American courthouse all in the same building. The traveler slept upstairs and the sleeping upstairs was the hospitality that the road required because the road in seventeen fifty did not have a Holiday Inn every thirty miles. The tavern keeper served meals at a common table and the common table was the boarding house before the boarding house existed. The mail was delivered to the tavern because the tavern was the only building in town that everyone visited and the everyone visiting meant the tavern was the public square under a roof. Elections were held in taverns. Town meetings were held in taverns. Militia companies mustered in the yard of the tavern. The tavern was the government before the government had buildings because the government in seventeen seventy six was just men arguing in a room and the tavern was the room.

The saloon replaced the tavern after the Civil War and the replacing was the specialization because the saloon sold only liquor and the selling only liquor was the narrowing that the temperance movement protested and the protesting led to Prohibition in nineteen twenty and Prohibition closed every legal drinking establishment in America for thirteen years. The speakeasy replaced the saloon during Prohibition and the replacing was the criminalization and the criminalization meant that drinking became secret and the secret made drinking more interesting than it had ever been. Repeal came in nineteen thirty three and the bar replaced the speakeasy and the bar was the tavern stripped of every function except drinking and the stripping of every function except drinking was the loss because the tavern had been a hotel and a restaurant and a post office and a courthouse and the bar was just a bar.

The tavern is not vanishing. The tavern is multiplying into forms that would confuse a colonial tavern keeper. The brewpub and the wine bar and the cocktail lounge and the sports bar are all descendants of the Green Dragon and the descending is the democracy because Americans have never stopped needing a room where they can sit and drink and argue. But the tavern that was the public square under a roof is gone. The tavern where the mail was delivered is gone. The tavern where elections were held is gone. The bar that replaced the tavern serves one function and the one function is the drink and the drink without the argument is just alcohol and the alcohol without the argument is not what Samuel Adams had in mind when he sat in the Green Dragon and planned the destruction of three hundred and forty two chests of tea. The tavern understood that democracy requires a room and the room requires a bar and the bar requires that the farmer stand next to the lawyer and the standing next to is still the equality and the equality still requires a drink and the drink is still the oldest technology of American self-governance.