Celebrate Independence Day

It’s easy to think of fun, sun, and relaxation over the 4th of July weekend. Ball games, picnics, and fireworks may be foremost in our minds on July 4th, but we should take the time to contemplate the real significance of this day.

The Founding Fathers launched an incredibly risky and radical undertaking in 1776 — breaking away from English rule, and challenging the forces of the British Empire, the most powerful political entity the world had ever known.

Study the Revolutionary War, and you’ll learn that America’s bid for independence was a “long-shot” endeavor — the odds of success were poor. On the battlefield, our revolutionary armies were defeated many times by the British, and Gen. George Washington himself believed the Revolution was a lost cause on many occasions. In celebrating the 4th of July, we should honor the courage and dedication of those who fought for independence. We should also take time to consider the principles set out in the Declaration of Independence itself. Have we, as a nation, remained faithful to these tenets?:

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.

[W]hen 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.

Click Here to learn more about the history of the
Declaration of Independence.