Legislative Column for June 27, 2019
In a few days, Americans will gather with friends and family to enjoy the Fourth of July holiday. We’ll cook outdoors, fly the flag and watch fireworks. It’s my hope that all of us will stop and consider why we celebrate this day and all that it represents.
It was sweltering hot in June of 1776 and a 33-year-old lawyer from Virginia rose each morning to put his pen to paper in a second-story apartment two blocks from the Pennsylvania Statehouse, where the Second Continental Congress had convened. The lead author of a five-man committee, it took Thomas Jefferson just three weeks to draft the historic document that would forever change the way men viewed governments, and their own liberty.
“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.”
It’s hard to fully appreciate just how radical these notions were at the time. As Jefferson wrote these words, a king sat on a throne 3,500 miles away, determined to defend his sovereignty. The Americans were not free men, created equal. They were his subjects. The only rights they had were those the king bestowed upon them.
Jefferson had another idea. “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” he wrote. When a government no longer serves the people, it is their duty to abolish and replace it.
The delegates to the Congress gathered in the Pennsylvania Statehouse on July 2 to debate Jefferson’s draft declaration. The final version of the document was approved two days later and delivered to a local printer. The iconic signatures of America’s founders would not adorn the document for another month.
On July 8, a bell rang from the Statehouse, calling all within earshot to gather on the lawn below. There, the Declaration of Independence was read to the public for the first time. The bell, bearing the inscription “proclaim liberty throughout the land,” would become an icon of the American experiment. Its familiar crack, repaired at the time of the signing, would reappear decades later.
The 56 men who eventually signed the treasonous declaration fully understood the stakes. If not, the document itself offered a sobering reminder: “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.”
These men had a lot to lose. Lawyers, physicians, merchants, shipping magnates, wealthy landowners – these were the most prominent men of their generation. They knew that challenging the king risked everything. Legend holds that Benjamin Franklin quipped, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
America’s War of Independence did not begin nor end with the Declaration. Three years earlier, in 1773, a series of protests culminated in mob action when the Sons of Liberty tossed tea into Boston Harbor. The first shots were fired in 1775, as local militias defended arms caches at Lexington and Concord. Hostilities escalated after the signing and the war raged for another five years. It’s unclear how many Americans died, though estimates range from 25,000 to as many as 70,000.
The struggle for American independence brought more than the end to British rule in the Colonies. It planted seeds of liberty across the globe. The American Revolution introduced the idea that men are inherently free and governments are a creation of the people, for the people. These powerful themes have spread throughout the world, and inspire oppressed people even to this day.
Throughout the past 243 years, Americans have expanded the ideals of freedom and liberty first espoused in 1776. We’ve struggled with slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights and a host of other shortcomings, but we continue to move closer to a more perfect union. Across generations, the Liberty Bell has rung again and again, at least symbolically, as we pursue equality for all. Our star-spangled banner still waves over the land of the free.
I wish everyone a wonderful Independence Day. Enjoy the festivities, but remember the freedoms of America are precious. As we gather to celebrate this holiday, I hope we all spend a few moments reflecting on these hard-fought blessings.
It is my great honor to represent the citizens of the 33rd Senatorial District. Although the Legislature has adjourned for 2019, I remain your senator throughout the year. If there’s anything that I can do to assist you, please feel free to contact my Capitol office at (573) 751-1882.