Today is a day of celebration and a day of remembrance.
It is a day of parades, barbeques, beaches, family and fireworks. It is
also a day to cherish the values we hold dear as Americans and to
appreciate the sacrifices many generations have given to make this day
possible.
I want to wish you a Happy July 4th. If you have a moment on this
festive occasion to reflect on the meaning of Independence Day, please
read the following passage beneath my signature. It was written 230
years ago and is quite a powerful reminder of what it means to be an
American.
If you have a comment about what Independence Day means to you, please
post it here. I look forward to reading your thoughts.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
Action of Second
Continental 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 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.
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 of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass
others to encourage their migration 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 harass 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 of 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 attention to our British 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.
John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo.
Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr., Thomas Lynch, junr.,
Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos.
Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison,
Thos. Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush,
Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James
Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart,
Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge
Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, C. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington,
Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.
My condolences go out to the family and friends of Coretta Scott King. She will be sorely missed by those whose causes she championed on behalf of racial and economic justice, rights for women and children rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament, and ecological sanity. Coretta Scott King's fight for civil equality must be kept alive. While the country has made progress on some of these issues, we must continue to fight for Ms. King's vision of equality for all Americans.