4th
I’m a patriot.
No, I’m not one of those blind patriots who bleeds red, white and blue without questioning. But I love this country and feel so blessed to live here and have the freedoms that I have. I am not exactly thrilled with the condition of things in the government. But in the days when I am most discouraged with the current group of politicians , I step back and remember the foundations of this country and the founding fathers.
The photo above is Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence. On this draft are small changes by his “editors” John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. (It’s part of an exhibit at the Library of Congress. ) I stood for several minutes, chills washing over me, as I gazed upon the familiar words as I thought about the ideas it expressed. Can you imagine how brave these men were? How incredibly lucky we are to have had these people care about what happened to not only their families but future generations?
I hope at least once since you’ve been out of school, you have taken the time to read the words of the document that Jefferson began. Here are the first couple of paragraphs, click here to read the entire text.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
Happy Independence Day.
