HAPPY 250TH BIRTHDAY USA!!!
HAPPY 250th BIRTHDAY USA!! Through two-and-a-half centuries the United State of America has survived wars, depressions, struggles, divisions, inequality, internal and external threats, sometimes poor leadership, and disasters but the grand "experiment" in democracy referred to by many of our founding fathers continues.
Today commemorates the final approval of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. It is the document that announced the separation of the 13 North American colonies from Great Britain.
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution “that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.” They appointed a Committee of Five to write an announcement explaining the reasons for independence. Thomas Jefferson, who chaired the committee wrote the first of six known drafts.
John Adams thought July 2nd would be marked as a national holiday because that was the day the actual vote to cut ties with England was taken. However, the process of revising the Declaration of Independence, originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson in consultation with fellow committee members John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, wasn't completed and signed until two days later. The 4th is the day final approval of the actual document took place in the Continental Congress.
A printed copy of the declaration wasn't read to the general public in Philadelphia until July 8th when Colonel John Nixon read it aloud in Independence Square.
56 delegates would sign the declaration on various dates after the fourth, many of them not adding their signature to the printed version until August 2nd.
The United States has always been a noisy, argumentative lot. That is a biproduct of freedom, and the disagreements started from day one. Some saw no need to separate, others believed the document wasn't completely truthful, still other claimed the colonies were too far away from England to be well governed by the king and parliament.
The declaration was directly influenced by the Magna Carta which was written in 1215 to settle a bloody political dispute between King John of England and a group of barons who were challenging the king’s absolute right to rule. It came to represent the idea that the people can assert their rights against an oppressive ruler and that the power of government can be limited to protect those rights. These concepts were clearly foundational and central to both the Declaration of Independence and to the later United States Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson's words in the declaration were definitely influenced by those presented to King John by the barons...
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.
Yes, there are flaws in the declaration because our founding fathers carried over the European belief that equality rested with the wealthy, male, property owners. Women and slaves had no rights to speak of.
The declaration was written and approved by the Continental Congress, but not all colonists agreed with it. Some colonists remained vocal loyalists to the crown, many of them supported the British Army in the ensuing American Revolution. So, this nation began amid disagreements and separation and remains a nation where we still struggle to live up to the words in the later U.S. Constitution to, "form a more perfect Union."
Many of those who are protesting and even refusing to participate in today's Independence Day celebration confuse the declaration with the constitution. The two documents were written 11 years apart. The declaration announced a break with the British crown while the constitution later established the framework for the federal government.
Today's 250th birthday celebrates the Declaration of Independence and its aspirations for liberty and self-government. The declaration is a manifesto while the constitution is a framework for governance, neither are perfect but then neither our founding fathers nor any of us today are perfect.
We have been through and are going through disagreements and threats, external and internal, but for 250 years the "experiment" in democracy, with all of its human flaws, continues.
HAPPY 250th BIRTHDAY USA!!
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