George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin may well have debated these constitutional questions in the Middleton Tavern, a seaside pub in Annapolis, Maryland, that's older than the country itself. The tavern boasts that they all drank there in the earliest days of the new republic.

That's where I met Lorraine Ross, who was celebrating her own milestone - her 60th birthday. She said she wanted to enjoy America's birthday, too, but was concerned about the country's future.

"I'm not going to be running around saying, yay, USA, we're free," she told me.

She said she was particularly worried about cuts to financial assistance for families in need and children with special needs. She expressed anger at Congress for "just letting him [Trump] run amok and ignore all the laws" that have constrained presidents' behaviours in the past.

Other Americans I spoke to at the tavern were simply looking forward to the Fourth of July festivities which the Trump administration has promised will be bigger and better than ever.

John Knox told me he did not want to get hung up on the politics around the current president.

Knox, who was visiting from Atlanta, told me that if people disagreed with Trump, the time to express that is in the midterm elections in November - not during the Fourth of July celebrations.

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