Perseverance and Spirit

By renouncing their allegiance to the King, the delegates at Philadelphia had committed treason and embarked on a course from which there could be no turning back ...

In a ringing preamble, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the document declared it "self-evident" that "all men are created equal," and were endowed with the "unalienable" right of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And to this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Such courage and high ideals were of little consequence, of course, the Declaration itself being no more than a declaration without military success against the most formidable force on earth ...

But from this point on, the citizen-soldiers of Washington's army were no longer to be fighting only for the defense of their country, or for the rightful liberties as freeborn Englishmen, as they had at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and through the long siege at Boston. It was now proudly proclaimed, all-out war for an independent America, a new America, and thus a new day of freedom and equality ...

At a stroke the Continental Congress had made the Glorious Cause of America more glorious still, for all the world to know, and also to give every citizen soldier at this critical juncture something still larger and more compelling for which to fight ...

-From David McCullough's "1776"

Amid the barbecues and fireworks, levity and laughter this weekend, we celebrate the promise of America's hard-fought values. These original values, conceived with almost divine foresight, created the basis for the most audacious experiment in democracy the world had ever seen.

The self-evident truths of equality were revolutionary thought at their time, laying the groundwork for a nation of frontiersmen, free thinkers, and leaders prospering with the opportunities only freedom can grant.

These original values, fought for so desperately, are America's culture, its gift to natural born and naturalized citizens alike, its gift to a world too hardened by its own imperialist history, to embrace the idealism of the world's newest country.

America's values are the antithesis of moral relativism, an embrace of the common, or natural, sense, an acquiescence to power higher than the self. Is it any wonder, the warrior's own values are so closely aligned ...

Be safe this weekend and embrace those you care about, wherever you might be.

James

"Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages."
-General George Washington

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.