hen 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 benefit 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 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.
"Go now, write it on a tablet for them,inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness." Isaiah 30:8
"Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God...What a Utopia, what a Paradise would this region be." John Adams, Feb. 22, 1756
"Before God, I believe the hour has come. My judgement approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it. And I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and Independence for ever!" John Adams, July 1, 1776Begun twenty five hundred years after the age of the Hebrew prophet, America's historical life has spanned two hundred thirty five years and thus she is still a young nation, one which looks forward to awakening to ever dawning horizons and climbing heretofore unachieved heights.
Her journal tells us that, at the beginning, she was borne, birthed and bundled in liberty, something no other nation child in the history of man could say. In that sense, her birth was of a virgin, miraculous nature - only in the power and purpose of Providence could such a conception have been possible. An unbiased study of the words of her founders and early settlers will tell the honest seeker that they certainly believed that truth:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day, the Fourth of July?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"? John Quincy Adams
" Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments." Charles Carroll
“ God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel” Benjamin Franklin
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” James Madison
“ At the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.” Joseph Story
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people...Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. . . . If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws." Noah Webster
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge in the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle..." George Washington
America's unique beginning is the first reason why she is indeed an exceptional child. She was blessed with inheriting from her ancestral heroes twin towers of guaranteed liberty - the simultaneous paradox of having a burning desire for freedom and independence from all earthly tyranny and yet absolute submission and dependence upon all heavenly authority.
Her birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, written in indelible ink upon her soul, reveals to the world the heart's desire of her fathers:
Out from Jefferson's pen, which traced Whitfield's God-inspired voice, flowed the sentiments of virtually every American - the expression of their collective mind and the revelation of their mindful convictions were written across the canvas of '76 for all the world to see - 'WE hold these truths to be self-evident' - her birth announcement called all peoples everywhere to celebrate the miracle and come to the manger to see what God had wrought. The first truth, while self-evident, is also preeminent - 'that ALL men are created equal.'
A statement of Biblical truth, proclaiming universal inclusion, absolute application, and Created equality. In the sovereign will and choice of God, all of His children are created in His image and they all are recipients of His choicest gifts - the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These precious gifts are given from above and as such they are eternal, good and perfect. Civil authority has no power in the eyes of God to give them or take them away - the sole purpose of human authority is to secure these rights - to guarantee them for all of America's progeny that all might have hope in them for all future time. Power used to destroy these rights is tyrannical in nature and complicit in it's own demise - it has abdicated it's rightful authority and it does not deserve to endure, thus, it is the duty of the governed to withdraw their consent and rescind the power they had allowed the authority to borrow.
America was originally dedicated to the eternal proposition of equality of person that affirmed the inherent value and dignity of every life. Every human being had a natural right to life, liberty, and individual possession of property and purpose - the pursuit of happiness. That foundational premise was laid in eternity past, based upon the blueprint drawn by the Architect of the Ages. It did not derive from the mind of mortal man and is not subject to the machinations of his mutable musings. It is an inviolate truth upon which rests the hope of all humanity.
Any existing flaw is neither in the Architect nor the foundation and structure of pristine principle which He has established, but in the corrupted nature of the guardians of America's egalitarian estate. In the course of her life, the young child has grown to be a beautiful lady, one who has established, defended, and advanced the blessings of liberty to millions in all corners of the world.
She has served as an inspiration and a model to all those bruised and battered souls who have yearned to breathe free - lady liberty has lifted her torch beside the golden door, beckoning the tempest tossed to her shores of opportunity and hope. The peoples of the world still look and still yearn, still sacrifice all to come to live in this God kissed land and establish a home that provides so sure a foundation of boundless hope.
That having been affirmed, not America, but her great friend, Israel, is certainly the most blessed and benevolent of nations because, in God's sovereign choice, hers are the patriarchs, the prophets, the covenants, and the Saviour of all mankind. Yet America remains second to none in terms of being the fountainhead of earthly good. Truly, America's greatness is in that goodness which she has shared with all mankind, a goodness so great that the world is warmed by it's glory.
America has been and remains, in the words of her political redeemer, 'God's almost chosen people' - 'the last, best hope of earth.' Throughout history, no other nation state has impacted the world for good like America - she has no peer as an acolyte of freedom and a model of Christian charity - she truly has been a city set upon a hill, lighting the darkness and leading the distressed toward the safety of home.
Indeed, when full consideration is given to her words and works, America is clearly seen in all of her wondrous splendor. The following facts are indisputable and a candid world must be ever grateful for them: The founding of America provided for the first time in the history of the world an unalterable basis for human freedom and equality - literally millions at home and around the world have been the beneficiary.
The New World has helped to rescue the Old from tyranny and enslavement on at least three occasions in the past century - untold millions are alive and living in freedom because of American courage and sacrifice - the sacred blood of American youth is incorporate in the soil of free nations everywhere.
More missionaries and humanitarian servants have gone forth from America than from any other land - it is not an exaggeration to say that entire nations and continents have been restored from rubble to riches through the generosity of America. More importantly, millions have come to a saving knowledge of God's amazing grace and experienced spiritual freedom from the bondage of sin because myriad multitudes of America's children have been compelled by the love of Christ to go into all the world.
Additionally, more earthly needs have been met through American kindness and provision than can be fathomed - she is truly the world's great benefactor. American ingenuity and enterprise have done more to raise the living conditions of more people in more places than any other system of economic production - millions live need filled lives as a result. Economically, militarily, politically, and religiously, this great nation has been the champion of freedom and done much to fulfill her destiny and high calling as ambassadors of liberty and love - her national legacy surpasses all others, enveloping more people than any other in freedom's sure embrace.
Nonetheless, if her living children are honest, they must admit that there are some things against her - she continues to walk the path of liberty, to be sure, yet, at times, she has strayed from the way of righteousness described above to travel byways of sin and forgetfulness. Her sin has always been most glaring and unseemly when she has forgotten God and thus missed meeting the lofty, idyllic bar of human equality. The nature of her transgression in this regard is seen most vividly in four distinct fault lines which run through the templates of her history.
First, in her treatment of the native born son - Despite many well intentioned religious and political efforts to protect the Indian, thousands, after these failed attempts at assimilation, were removed from their ancestral land, trailing behind them a torrent of tears that remind us still of the injustice.
The effort toward effecting a proper relationship between the national government and the Indian nations, while in many cases well intentioned, is certainly an example of public policy being used to justify unwise ends and unfair means - there had to have been a better way. Many were continually pushed, pursued, mistreated, neglected, brutalized and killed, largely because they were regarded with fear as savage and brutish or seen as not deserving of the equal blessings of civil and natural rights.
The question was complex and the wisdom of the solution can be argued - the greater sin, it seems, was in the breaking of the promise that, once having been resettled, the government would allow the Indian to live in peace. The promise once given should have been kept - it was not. Ultimately, in comparison to the whole, all but a very few acres were wrested from the hand of the red to rest in the hand of the white.
Similarly, the sin of American slavery, a despotic and demonic institution whose life spanned two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil, was destructive beyond human comprehension. In it's final, glorious death throes, Lincoln spoke in his second inaugural address, of the life of this death dealing institution and it's impact upon the nation:
So rooted in the rock hard soil of man's sinful and selfish heart, it required the death of over six hundred thousand American children to remove it. Indeed since that sacrificial work and divine judgement, untold more have toiled, suffered and died to destroy the replanted seeds of segregation and racial prejudice - the timeless, essential work continues:
Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.' Martin Luther King Jr.
In these words, we hear an American prophetic voice calling, one hundred years after the liberator of his race prayed for America itself to be born again unto freedom, for the sanctifying work to continue unto eternity. May the words of both be heeded and lived.
Abortion, the murder of a human being, a precious child in the comfort of a mother's womb - is an ever spreading stain upon the soul of America and she must weep in shame and sorrow for unrealized potential and exterminated lives. It is her children she is killing and the very blood of her blood that is being shed! Over forty million, never hers to nurse, nurture, and raise in the blessings of liberty - America must tremble at the knowledge that God is the Supreme Judge of the Universe.
The blood of the innocent, like Abel's, cries out from the ground as a resounding witness and indictment upon us all - every moment, however, we stand, still unmoved, still silent, still not our brother's keeper, as one after another are wrenched through the torn veil of eternity.
Finally and incredibly, worst of all, is America's amnesia concerning the Source of all of her blessings, all of her liberty, all of her goodness and her very life itself. It is not a new phenomena:
“ The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal." Thomas Paine
Simply put, America has forgotten God. History has shown that when this has occured in other nations, God's judgment comes as He looses the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. The grapes of wrath are being stored up and ultimately, apart from national repentance, they will be pressed out until His cup of undiluted fury is filled to overflowing.
America is in the process of exchanging life for death, liberty for tyranny, absolute Truth for moral relativism, the eternal for the temporal, the heavenly for the earthly, the spiritual for the material, Christianity for Humanism, God for man. Nothing short of America dropping to her knees in contrition and confession will save her from a weakened and eventually shortened life. We must emulate the proclamation issued by Father Abraham, March 30, 1863:
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation:
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and, of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
Abraham Lincoln
While not new, the lack of an acknowledgment of God in all our ways has reached new levels - millions today would remove all vestiges of His Presence from America's life. This is perhaps best seen in the understanding that such a proclamation as noted above would not be tolerated today by those who would deny the very existence and recognition of our manifold sins and God's absolute authority. Truly, our varied sins have this in common - they all involve the forgetting of God and His truth, the denial of His sovereignty, wisdom, precepts, and blessing. America once, despite her sins, acknowledged the hand and will of God in her life and valued it above all - she is now in the process of giving it all away and allowing herself to be turned over to dark and malevolent forces.
Those of you who love her, know and heed this clarion call: America is in danger of death by suicide. Who will help her? Who will warn her? Who will intervene? Who will intercede? Who will raise a voice and stand for Truth? Who will take her by the hand, walk her down the aisle, and kneel with her at the foot of the Cross, that she might remember and return to her first love? Her life and the life of her posterity hang in the balance. God is asking for someone to lead her in the Way again. Who will go for us? For her? Will you? May God raise up a generation of Isaiah's who will boldly and courageously say, "Here I am, send Me!" It is America's - it is our - only hope.
I believe our nation is at a crossroad - the current generation will either walk the path of restoration and rebirth concerning our national blessings or walk a crumbling, perilous path of eroding foundations and diminishing light. I believe the keys to which way we will turn are simple: Will we, once again, acknowledge God and His sovereignty over us? Will we, once again, acknowledge our sins, rebellion, and apathy and seek His forgiveness and restoration? Will we, once again, acknowledge the responsibility to which believers in Christ have been called?
We must remember, proclaim, and defend truth! We must not, any longer, forget, remain silent, or give ground! Either way, we shall indeed reap what we sow…
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We have been in a battle for the hearts and minds of our citizenry, particularly our young people for decades, and sadly, many Christians are still unaware or are apathetic concerning that reality. Note the following quotes and stories from those who would deny and destroy the historical record and foundations of our faith and freedom and have a strategy and desire to do so:
These examples should sober us and impel us to action, but, there is hope! There are millions in this nation who still bend the knee and raise their hearts in prayer and worship to the Sovereign Lord of heaven! It is not too late, but do you believe, as I, that as time wanes, our resolve must wax to ever increasing levels of passion and devotion to the cause? If so, let us act together, pray together, work together so that we may have an adequate answer when asked, “What did you do to preserve freedom in your generation?”
The challenge is before us, NOW - there is no time to wait, no chance to pass our responsibility on to someone else or to a later generation. Is there anything more important than securing the blessings of spiritual and national liberty for ourselves and our posterity? Is there?….
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These immortal words, penned five months following America's national birth, were words of encouragement, challenge, and reminder to Americans at the beginning of the Source and value of her founding ideals and of her great crisis of the moment. The greatest military force on the face of the earth opposed her, occupied her cities, and threatened to destroy the revolutionary quest for freedom and self government in it's infancy. Gen. Washington's beaten and demoralized forces lay huddled close against the shores of the formidable Delaware River while enemy forces bivouaced securely across the water near Trenton. Audaciously, Washington planned a surprise Christmas night attack, one that would provide a strategically small but emotionally gigantic victory, one that inspired many soldiers to reenlist and others to join the forces of the glorious cause.
Incredibly, against all odds and hope, Washington led his men through sleet and snow across the treacherous river and on to immortality; but, before he did, he ordered the words of Paine to be read to his army, that they might be inspired to "stand it now" and see through all the gloom, the "ravishing rays of light and glory" shining upon them and stretching forth, to us. May we see them to, and be inspired to remember the God who has blessed and sustained us, that we too, and our posterity, may triumph too, "in that day's transaction."
"Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony "that these united Colonies, are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which other States may rightfully do." You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes which have impell'd Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it in the Sight of God and Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days. . . ."
John Adams, to his wife Abigail, July 3, 1776
Truly, our founder's decisive wisdom, written on parchment, but embedded in eternal truth and longing hearts, transformed the world. The power of that transformation has extended down the corridors of two centuries of time and inspires the world still. May we, as Americans, today, be reminded of the momentous blessings our forefathers gave us, and may we live lives worthy of that blessing again.
It is the ultimate of incredible ironies, that, on the day Congress officially approved the measure for independence, the five words the king of Great Britain penned in his diary for July 4, 1776 were succinct, poignant, and, in total error:
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