He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
It’s a good day to read the Declaration of Independence.
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I would urge everyone not merely to read the Declaration, but to read it aloud. We started this tradition last year in our family celebration. This year, my father (a pastor) had a member of the congregation read it in Sunday morning service. I attended the reading at Colonial Williamsburg. Different interpreters took turns reciting parts of the document, which made the listing of the colonies’ complaints against the King seem ever more real and compelling. One wag in the audience yelled out “No taxation without representation!” and there was general cheering at “We hold these truths to be self-evident..” part.
It was a moving experience, especially when the crowd very softly joined in on the more well-known phrases. People around me were fiercely whispering the last sentence, as if pledging their own lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
Maybe next year I will go to Philadelphia and hear the Declaration read in its birthplace (Bill is right, the summers in Philly are brutal but Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell are NOT to be missed!), or Boston, to hear it read where the seeds of Independence were first planted.
A couple years ago I went to the National Archives to see the great document in person. It’s faded and barely legible despite efforts to preserve it for posterity, some of which were misguided and damaging; a small card lies next to it that says the Declaration is fading not from neglect, but from an excess of devotion. The sight of that piece of parchment–and a few feet away, another that starts with “WE THE PEOPLE”–brought a huge lump to my throat. If you have not seen them–GO. By all means, GO.
July 4th was a wonderful day to acknowledge the faith and godly wisdom of our Founding Fathers, the freedoms provided in the Founding Documents, G_d’s tremendous blessings on our country, and the sacrifices of previous generations so that we can enjoy the privilege of living in this Republic. Today I was reminded via an email from a friend how vigilant and prayerful we need to be. Check out this short vid at Jihad Watch: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html
Wake up, America… and G_d help us.
Carol:
Amen.
Sarah:
Bill Kristol made a wonderful observation about The Declaration. It is one of the few masterpieces that was done by committee. The other is The King James Bible.
Bill:
I’ve never been to Constitution Hall. Sigh.
Johnny:
I believe that most of our politicians, especially Democrats, could not care less about the Declaration or The Constitution. And the ones that do are reviled as lunatic right wingers.
From a population of less than 4 million, this country produced leaders that gave us victory over Great Britain and produced a constitution that guaranteed freedoms no other citizens of the world would know. Freedoms that come not from our government but rights that we are endowed with from our creator.
Is it too much to ask our politicians to read the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution? To understand what those collection of words really mean? For while they all swear fidelity to those words, they dare not contemplate on their meaning for they would be forced to look upon the great masses as their masters and not their subjects.
Our Constitution is a terrible thing to waste.
I went to Constitution Hall in Philadelphia a few years ago. For those of you who know the summer in that area, imagine those founders sweltering in there, day after day, trying to produce a document that appeased the smaller states, afraid of being swallowed up by the big states (Virginia and New York), making a diverse group of representatives happy with the results.
While in the University years ago I read the Federalist Papers, essentially a diary of the proceedings kept by James Madison (if memory serves me).
I have said to myself that I have to reread it – and will this year. If you ever wonder “why things were made as they were” this is a must read – the concerns that they had, some coming to fruition – it is all in the Federalist Papers.
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As to the Declaration imagine those signers who had everything to lose, pledging their “lives and sacred honor”. A lot of them lost everything – families and fortune.
I have always believed that these 2 documents had to have been divinely inspired.
May G*d continue to guide and protect us.
It’s such a masterful document. In the AP English Language and Composition course I taught this past spring (basically Logic and Rhetoric), we compared the American Declaration of Independence to the Israeli one. The consensus was that although the Israeli one is persuasive and moving — especially to us, since we are Jewish and feel the import of it — it just doesn’t hold a candle to the American one, from a rhetorical perspective. Rhetorically, it’s one of the best documents ever written.
G-d bless these United States.