The Declaration of Independence: Thirteen Colonies Yearning to Be Free | Eastern North Carolina Now

    One day after the Declaration was adopted by the delegates to the Second Continental Congress, John Adams wrote home to his wife Abagail: "I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction."

    In a speech he gave on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (5 July 1926), Calvin Coolidge reflected:

    Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed. If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination... In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause... If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.

    By a stroke of remarkable coincidence, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day - the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826. Jefferson preceded Adams in death by five hours.

    When I think about Independence Day, I think of our magnificent story. I think about the uncompromising determination of people to live free and the eternal vigilance it took to finally secure lasting boundaries on government. I think about the ways the British and then the colonists expressed their discontent with the King and the many ways they sought to exert their rights, and how the many efforts culminated in their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence. I think about how our Founding Fathers brilliantly turned government on its head - transforming a system of government based on the Divine Right of Kings to a system predicated on Individual Sovereignty. I think of a continuum of a story that began in 1215 with a stand-off on the meadow at Runnymede in order to secure a promise from an arrogant and ambitious king that ended with a document signed by 56 delegates assembled together from 13 separate states on July 4. The continent may have changed, but man's yearning to be free did not.

    Now, as we all know, a country is a physical location inhabited by a body politic. Principles are embraced by people and not by geography, and so liberty and independence is a spirit that must live in all of us. If it doesn't, then we suffer oppression together. As Machiavelli once said: "It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free." The Declaration embraces our revolutionary spirit, and God help us when our country has the spirit of an aging grandmother. The key is to always keep that revolutionary spirit. And maybe that's what Independence Day is all about.... to reflect on our history and to rekindle that spirit every year.


    In conclusion, I would like to implore that on this Independence Day and on every Independence Day, that we remember the advice that was once given to us by James Madison: "The people of the U.S. owe their Independence and their liberty to the wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings."

    References:

    Diane Rufino, "Independence Day: The Story of Us," Diane's Blogsite (www.forloveofgodandcountry), July 3, 2016. Referenced at: https://forloveofgodandcountry.com/2016/07/08/independence-day-the-story-of-us/

    Mike Maharrey, "The Declaration of Independence Birthed 13 Sovereign Nations," Tenth Amendment Center, July 3, 2019. Referenced at: https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2019/07/03/the-declaration-of-independence-birthed-13-sovereign-nations/

    "Breaking Down the Declaration of Independence," SAISD Social Studies Department - https://www.saisd.net/admin/curric/sstudies/resources/teacher_zone/Hands_On/gov_econ/pdf/ho_us1_breaking_doi.pdf

    The List of Grievances in the Declaration of Independence, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

    Brion McClanahan, "Rethinking the Declaration of Independence," Abbeville Institute, July 4, 2016. Referenced at : http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/rethinking-the-declaration-of-independence/

    Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr. (Professor of Political Science), "The American System of Government: The American Constitutional System - English Origins (1066-1558)," Cyberland University of North Carolina.

    Referenced at: http://www.proconservative.net/CUNAPolSci201PartFourB.shtml [In-depth study of the Magna Carta]

    The Petition of Right of 1628 - http://study.com/academy/lesson/petition-of-right-of-1628-definition-summary.html

    The English Bill of Rights of 1689 - http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp

    The Grand Remonstrance - http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur043.htm

    The Declaration and Resolves - http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/resolves.asp

    Patrick Henry's Speech of March 23, 1775 - https://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/giveme.cfm

    Halifax Resolves - http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-revolution/4328

    Preamble and Resolution of the Virginia Convention of May 15, 1776 - http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/const02.asp

    The Lee Resolutions - http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/lee.asp

    "Boiling It Down, This Is What You've Said," Mark America, October 15, 2011. Referenced at: http://markamerica.com/2011/10/15/boiling-it-down-this-is-what-youve-said/

    Winston Churchill, "The Sinews of Peace", address at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (March 5, 1946); in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963 (1974), vol. 7, p. 7288.

    Calvin Coolidge, speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (July 5, 1926).