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May this Fourth be spent as merrily as 1776

Looking back over our history, our arrival at this July Fourth - free, secure and prosperous and celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and flags - now seems like an inevitable historical progression.

But the American republic was never inevitable, and it was probably least inevitable 229 years ago on the day when the Founding Fathers signed it into existence, as historian David McCullough usefully reminds us in his marvelous new book on that perilous and pivotal year, "1776."

What is justly best known from the Declaration of Independence is Thomas Jefferson's brilliant summation of the American ideal, "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."

However, the rest of the Declaration is an angry bill of particulars listing several dozen very specific grievances against the British Crown. Even at this remove, you can almost feel Jefferson's anger rise as he writes.

"The lines were drawn now as never before, the stakes far higher," McCullough writes. There was no going back. The Americans gathered in Philadelphia had committed treason. And it was one thing to declare independence and another for the scattered and divided colonies to seize it from the world's largest military power.

Even as the Declaration was being signed, a huge British fleet, eventually numbering hundreds of ships, was arriving off New York loaded with highly trained, well-fed and highly motivated professional soldiers. If their commander, Lord Howe, could not overawe the colonials into surrender, he was to quickly crush them militarily.

The birth year of the republic, 1776, McCullough observes, was "a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear ."

But George Washington and his makeshift little army endured and ultimately prevailed. And because of them we celebrate the glorious Fourth in the spirit of the revolutionary officers in New York who, upon receiving news of the signing of the Declaration, "went to a public house to testify our joy at the happy news of Independence. We spent the afternoon merrily."

Spend your July Fourth merrily and safely.

Link: http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/todays_editorial/article/0,1406,KNS_362_3899386,00.htm

The Declaration of Independence

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 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 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 and 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 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, president

CHARLES THOMSON, secretary

New Hampshire

JOSIAH BARTLETT

WILLIAM WHIPPLE

MATTHEW THORNTON


Massachusetts Bay

SAMUEL ADAMS

JOHN ADAMS

ROBERT TREAT PAINE

ELBRIDGE GERRY


Rhode Island

STEPHEN HOPKINS

WILLIAM ELLERY


Connecticut

ROGER SHERMAN

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON

WILLIAM WILLIAMS

OLIVER WOLCOTT


Georgia

BUTTON GWINNETT

LYMAN HALL

GEORGE WALTON


Maryland

SAMUEL CHASE

WILLIAM PACA

THOMAS STONE

CHARLES CARROLL


Virginia

GEORGE WYTHE

RICHARD HENRY LEE

THOMAS JEFFERSON

BENJAMIN HARRISON

THOMAS NELSON JR.

FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE

CARTER BRAXTON


New York

WILLIAM FLOYD

PHILIP LIVINGSTON

FRANCIS LEWIS

LEWIS MORRIS


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


North Carolina

WILLIAM HOOPER

JOSEPH HEWES

JOHN PENN


South Carolina

EDWARD RUTLEDGE

THOMAS HEYWARD JR.

THOMAS LYNCH JR.

ARTHUR MIDDLETON


New Jersey

RICHARD STOCKTON

JOHN WITHERSPOON

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

JOHN HART

ABRAHAM CLARK

Happy Independence Day, US citizens!

Bit of a sod that George III, wasn't he...?!!

No wonder he went mad...apparently, in his diary of that very date in 1776 he wrote...'...nothing of importance happened today...'

Anyway, enjoy your day America...

Happy Birthday America. :)

Happy Birthday, USA!

:D

:D
Happy birthday America!