Happy Independence Day!

[Damocles]

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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 of 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 shewn, 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.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton



Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton



Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry



Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery



Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott



New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

[Legion]

Most Americans celebrating the July 4th holiday today under-appreciate or have forgotten that it was the sheer power of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence that was the determining factor for the Americans in winning the War of Independence.

Additionally, most today have no idea how somber the occasion was when those 56 members of the Continental Congress committed themselves to signing the Declaration in July of 1776. They knew that taking pen to paper as a signatory was for each a death warrant for being a traitor to Great Britain. Thus, the first Declaration of Independence that was signed on July 4, did not have signatures from the committed delegates. Instead, there were two signatures on that first document: John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress and Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress.

It took more than two weeks for the Declaration to be “engrossed” -- that is written on parchment in a clear hand. Many of the 56 delegates to the Continental Congress who had agreed to sign the document did so on August 2, but there were new delegates who replaced some six of the original delegates and there were an additional seven delegates who could not sign until many weeks later. At that time Great Britain was the dominant power in the western world, and the reality was that the untrained and under-equipped American colonial army had almost no chance of defeating the British army and navy -- the most formidable military force in the world. So the 56-signatory Declaration was held in abeyance to protect the lives and property of the signers for release at a later time.

General George Washington was in New York preparing its defense, when on July 6, 1776 a courier from Philadelphia arrived to deliver a copy of the two-signature Declaration of Independence that had been agreed upon by the Continental Congress several days before. Deeply moved by the power of the Declaration’s words, Washington ordered copies sent to all generals in the Continental Army and that chaplains be hired for every regiment to assure that, “every officer and man, will endeavor so to live and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.” Like the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration was a true covenant of absolute commitment, with its last sentence invoking: “…with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

A few days later, on July 9, after the meaning of the Declaration had sunk in, Washington called a halt to his troops’ battle preparations, and announced a respite and gathering in order to read the Declaration to his soldiers and townspeople. The crowd hustled down to what is now lower Manhattan where they could see the British ships at anchor in New York harbor. The occasion was also marked by a few rowdies pulling down a monument to King George III, severing the statue’s head.

Under Washington’s command were about 18-19,000 men making up what was a rag-tag colonial army. They faced about 35,000 professionally trained and well-equipped British and German mercenary Hessian soldiers who had arrived on some 150 British ships. When conflict finally broke out on Long Island on August 27th, Washington’s men were quickly and soundly thrashed and forced to retreat. Washington’s troops would face two more devastating routs in the next two months, with nearly six times more casualties than the British suffered -- forced to leave New York in total and abject defeat.

Washington’s greatest challenge then in marching in November to Philadelphia was maintaining the morale, confidence, and loyalty of his greatly diminished and discouraged troops, numbering only about 3,500 at that time. But for a gallant few, nearly all thought the Revolution was lost.

Encamped near Philadelphia on the bank of the Delaware River, Washington pondered his next move. His faith and belief in the cause of independence sustained him, but he knew at this point only a decisive victory could bring about a reversal of fortune. That prayer was answered when reliable intelligence from a spy revealed that a large contingent of Hessians under British command were occupying Trenton only nine miles away. Washington immediately set to planning the famous crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night and the march to Trenton that followed. The surprise attack that ensued early the next morning was a resounding victory. And after another intelligence tip a few days later, Washington made a second successful surprise attack on the British encamped in nearby Princeton.

Perceiving this dual miracle as a harbinger of more victories to come, and perhaps with many recognizing the power of providence and the vital importance in the ideas manifest in the Declaration, the Continental Congress ordered the reprinting and dissemination to all the colonies of the now famous 56-signature Declaration of Independence on January 18, 1777 -- some six months after the original document had been drafted and resoundingly approved.

On balance, the colonial army lost more battles than it won, but the persistence of Washington over the next four and three-quarter years and the victory at Yorktown on October 17, 1781 brought an end to the war, the surrender of the British, and the complete independence of the United States.

Washington remains the greatest president in the minds of many because of his fearless courage in battle, his incredible perseverance against unfathomable odds, and his attendant faith in the providence that provided protection and empowered him to achieve the impossible.

As we reflect on the meaning of July 4th this year, we should celebrate and take heart that the same good ideas and principles -- natural rights and obligations -- expressed in the Declaration of Independence -- that inspired Washington are as real today as they were then. And when these ideas and principles are acted upon by enough people, good will triumph over evil.



https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/the_ideas_behind_july_4th.html

[Jack]

[AProudLefty]

[BidenPresident]

I would rather have King George than President Trump.

[AProudLefty]

I would rather have King George than President Trump.

[Minister of Truth]

No, it's not. He literally means that. We arrived at a point, about two generations ago, where it started to become incomprehensible to certain people as to what problems the colonists really had with King George and his progressive tax policies.

Incidentally, here is his flag:

[AProudLefty]

No, it's not. He literally means that. We arrived at a point, about two generations ago, where it started to become incomprehensible to certain people as to what problems the colonists really had with King George and his progressive tax policies.

Incidentally, here is his flag:

Yeah it's stunning. People can hate the president all they want, but to "prefer" King George over them? That takes a special kind of retard.

I'd rather have a rock for a President than King George.

[Minister of Truth]

Yeah it's stunning. People can hate the president all they want, but to "prefer" King George over them? That takes a special kind of retard.

I'd rather have a rock for a President than King George.

The funny thing is that post-Stuart England (thanks to the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution) gave us a decidedly muted Hanover royal family compared to the absolute monarchy of Henry VIII. Even still, it had the power to trample on liberties and customs without any recourse.

[Legion]

July 4, 1776, is the birthdate of the United States of America. Now, more than ever, it should be celebrated for that, but also as something more: the greatest single day for human liberty in the history of the world.

The birthdate of the United States, long settled, is contested today by radicals: Should we celebrate it, or mourn it? Should we instead center the founding of our nation in its worst moments, not its best? Of course, America was conceived, was born, and matured in stages. The history of the American people dated to Jamestown in 1607, and our self-government to the first Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619 and the Mayflower Compact in 1620. Our separation from Britain began at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, and was not completed until November 25, 1783, when the British evacuated occupied Manhattan. The full promise of America was longer in the achieving, and is never an entirely completed project.

But consider that phrase: “the promise of America.” No other nation, before July 4, 1776, was founded on a promise. No other polity could be called to fulfill its founding ideals, because no other polity had any. States had rationalizations, and in some cases guiding faiths, but they did not have statements of principles.

In drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and his collaborators John Adams and Benjamin Franklin made a dramatic choice: not only to provide the Continental Congress with an announcement of a new nation’s birth — a statement still enshrined in American law as the nation’s beginning — but also to offer a justification for that founding.

Then, they went further: They grounded that justification in the universal and equal rights of man.

The second paragraph of the Declaration, in mostly Jefferson’s words but bearing the signature of all 13 state delegates assembled in the Continental Congress, announced to the world:

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 of 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.

“All” men.

“Any” form of government.

These are universal truths, and calling them “self-evident” was a bold challenge to a world in which they were rarely honored.

In the world of 1776, few people chose any of their own government, or had enforceable liberties against a limited government.

In the words of Seymour Drescher (one of the leading historians of global slavery and abolition), “personal bondage was the prevailing form of labor in most of the world".

Personal freedom, not slavery, was the peculiar institution.

In 1772, Arthur Young estimated that only 33 million of the world’s 775 million inhabitants could be called free.

Adam Smith offered a similarly somber ratio to his students and prophesied that slavery was unlikely to disappear for ages, if ever.”

The Declaration, by marrying eloquent words to political deeds, created a language in which people of every nation, rank, and color could champion liberty and challenge tyranny and bondage.

And so they did, here and abroad, almost from the first moment they heard the words.

By the end of the 18th century, the Declaration had inspired reformers and revolutionaries in France, the Netherlands, and Haiti.

Vermont in 1777 became the first place on earth to ban slavery in its constitution; Pennsylvania in 1780 became the first to ban it by legislation.

From the outset, the United States was unlike any nation that had ever existed.

From the very beginning, the citizens of the new nation set about the business of fulfilling the Declaration’s promise, in myriad ways that are still contested today.

Their descendants would expend much blood and treasure securing liberty at home and promoting it abroad.

The Founding Fathers were not Utopians.

The Declaration added, immediately after its most stirring passage, a statement of caution that underlined the gravity of the Continental Congress’s decision: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”

[B]The men who signed the Declaration were committing treason, and they knew they could be hanged for it.[B]

George Washington had it read aloud to his troops, who knew the same thing.

They did so for no light or transient causes, but for the greatest and most enduring purposes.

They made the greatest nation the world has ever known, and made possible much of the progress in others as well. They deserve the fireworks on our Independence Day.




https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/a-day-to-celebrate-the-american-promise/

[PoliTalker]

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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 of 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 shewn, 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.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton



Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton



Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry



Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery



Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott



New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

Thanks Damo,

It's a great country.

I love it.

Happy 4th to you.

[Geeko Sportivo]

A nation that still falls short of its ideals

"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." So wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1776. It doesn't say much for minorities, women, or children!

July 4 was chosen as our "Independence Day" because it was the date that the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. For the first two decades after the Declaration was written, people didn't celebrate it much, but after the War of 1812 printed copies of the Declaration began to circulate, all with the date July 4, 1776, listed at the top. The deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826, hours apart from each other, further helped promote the idea of July 4 as a date to be celebrated.

Celebrations of the Fourth of July became more common as the years went by. In 1870, almost a hundred years after the Declaration was written, Congress declared July 4 to be a national holiday.

As we celebrate with family, cookouts, parades and fireworks, we need more than ever to be aware of the contradiction between the claim that "all men are created equal" and the existence of American slavery. And yet still here we are today, allowing states to suppress the votes of minorities.

This contradiction attracted comment as early as 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was first published. Abolitionist Thomas Day, responding to the hypocrisy in the Declaration wrote, "If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves."

So even in its infancy, our country had the contradictions that persist to this day — between American patriots who wanted independence for themselves while believing in a doctrine of white supremacy that allowed them to own other human beings, and abolitionists who pointed out the disparity between our ideals and the reality.

[SmarterthanYou]

Having been told that the Declaration was nothing more than a public service announcement or a press release, Independence day should be nothing more than a footnote in our history. Not anything to make a federal holiday

[Legion]

It was 245 years ago that a brave group of American colonists sent what was effectively a legal complaint to the King of England.

Inspired by the English jurist William Blackstone, the complaint contained a list of the colonists’ grievances, then demanded their independence as compensation for damages.

This citizen’s complaint is commonly known as the Declaration of Independence.

We celebrate July 4th, 1776, as our nation’s birthday. It is not, in the strictest sense, the date of our birth; nor is it even the actual year.

Depending on how you choose to define it, our nation was actually “born” either in 1787 (with the signing of the Constitution), in 1788 (with the ratification of the Constitution), or in 1789 (with the convening of the First Congress).

What then should we call July 4, 1776? It is the day we got started. What followed was a long and bloody path toward liberation.

Today, the Declaration of Independence is one of the (if not the) most cherished American documents. Its language is inspiring, and it reminds us of the incredible courage shown and the price paid by those who risked and gave all to secure for us the gift of freedom. It is a foundational part of our history.

But it is not a part of our present.

We no longer are a distant colony living under the rule of an unreasonable king. We won our freedom, wrote a constitution, and built a new nation.

Using the greatest ideas from the Enlightenment, our founding fathers started us on a path that led us to become the greatest nation in the history of Western Civilization.

We won our independence, but we now suffer under a new sort of tyrant. We find ourselves bound by the invisible chains of co-dependence. We are not being ruled unreasonably by others. Instead, we are unreasonably letting ourselves be ruled by the need to appear caring and helpful. We are supporting, perpetuating, and enabling the irresponsible and destructive behavior of our fellow citizens who are determined to fundamentally transform the tenets of Americanism.


It is, therefore, once again time for a statement to be made and for lines to be drawn. We cannot find the strength to restore our republic if we cannot first find the strength to set our own minds and consciences free. It is time to formally and publicly decline to remain codependent.



https://humanevents.com/2021/07/04/an-american-declination-of-codependence-issued-july-4th-2021/

[Controlled Opposition]

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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 of 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 shewn, 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.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton



Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton



Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry



Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery



Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott



New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

Thanks for the list of signers. Benjamin Rush is in my family tree.