God has given America to be free (Post Patriotic stuff here)

Almost two centuries ago a group of disturbed men met in the small Pennsylvania State House. They gathered to decide on a course of action. Behind the locked and guarded doors they debated for hours whether or not to sign the Declaration which had been presented for their consideration. For hours the talk was treason and its price the headsman's axe, the gallows and noose. The talk went on and decision was not forthcoming. Then, Jefferson writes, a voice was heard coming from the balcony:

They may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. They may pour our blood on a thousand scaffolds and yet from every drop that dyes the axe a new champion of freedom will spring into birth. The words of this declaration will live long after our bones are dust.

To the mechanic in his workshop they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom; but to the coward rulers, these words will speak in tones of warning they cannot help but hear. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck. Sign if the next minute this hall rings with the clash of falling axes! Sign by all your hopes in life or death, not only for yourselves but for all ages, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom the bible of the rights of man forever.

Were my soul trembling on the verge of eternity, my hand freezing in death, I would still implore you to remember this truth: God has given America to be free.

As he finished, the speaker sank back in his seat exhausted. Inspired by his eloquence the delegates rushed forward to sign the Declaration of Independence. When they turned to thank the speaker for his timely words he couldn't be found and to this day no one knows who he was or how he entered or left the guarded room.

Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

WHEN 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 the 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 the 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 harrass 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 protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

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 Rules 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 and 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.

John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr., Thomas Lynch, junr., Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, C. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.

Independence Day in a Time of War

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2002 -- For the first time since Vietnam,
the United States is at war during Independence Day.

The global war on terrorism brings new meaning to the Fourth of July. The celebration of U.S. freedom is muted in many homes because of death or the absence of loved ones off serving the country.

July 4, 1776, was also celebrated during a time of war. As the Second Continental Congress voted for independence in Philadelphia, the British fleet sailed into the harbor of New York to land soldiers.

Americans knew from the moment the Declaration of Independence was approved that they were embarking on a new course. The war for independence had started in April 1775 when Patriot and British forces traded volleys at Lexington and Concord, Mass. The Continental Congress established the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, and appointed George Washington as its commander the next day.

From the first shots until July 4, 1776, Patriot forces would battle the British army or their Tory allies (colonists loyal to Britain) in more than a dozen significant face-offs from northern New York to South Carolina and countless unrecorded minor ones. War affected each and every Colonial family, whether Patriot or Tory.

When Congress passed the Declaration of Independence, no one knew what form "these United states" would ultimately take. The Colonies, after all, were just a loose collection of English-speaking settlements that had been founded for a variety of reasons -- nation-building not being one. Continental distances in the age of horse power were daunting, and every possibility existed that the Colonies would go their separate ways once independence was won.

But even during the war, Washington and other Patriot leaders strove to make sense of the price in blood that Americans were paying for independence. Washington knew that "these United states" would be an experiment that could only succeed if independence were secured on the pillars of justice and freedom.

Washington didn't want Americans to exchange one tyrant for another, or another set of tyrants. The Revolution had to have meaning beyond just winning American independence.

Freedom and justice are worth fighting for. Americans from the Revolution to the War on Global Terrorism have realized that. Americans don't fight for plunder or territory. They do fight in defense of their homes, to establish peace and for the basic rights of human beings.

July 4th this year will have celebrations. Fireworks will go off and Americans will join with friends and family to celebrate all that is good about being Americans. But Americans must remember the great evil done to America and what the country stands for as they celebrate independence.

"If you're interested in fighting evil, you can do so by doing some good -- by mentoring a child, by going to a shut-in's house and say, 'What can I do to help you?'" President Bush said during a speech June 19. "You see, it's those small acts of kindness that really end up defining the true character of this country.

"I believe that out of the evil done to America (on Sept. 11) will come incredible good," Bush said. "The world is going to be more peaceful, America will be more secure. And millions of Americans understand that serving something greater than yourself in life is an important part of having a full life."

July 4th is the most American of holidays. In a time of war, it is the time to celebrate together and work together to make America worth the blood sacrificed by so many.

Found these at the Christian Science Monitor:

GLORY RISING: The American flag flies next to a steel-girder cross at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. CHIP EAST/REUTERS

ORGANIC PATRIOTISM: The Bodger Seed Company in Lompoc, Calif., has grown a giant US flag from red, white, and blue larkspur. Jack Bodger managed the project, which spans 6.65 acres and required 125 pounds of seeds at a cost of $40,000. Robert Harbison – Staff

LIBERTY AND SECURITY: A runner jogs between barricades surrounding the Washington Monument just after sunrise, July 4, 2002. In addition to barricades and fencing surrounding the national Mall, military jets patrol the skies as part of unprecedented security to protect Americans, nervous about fresh attacks after Sept. 11. GREGG NEWTON/REUTERS

NOT YOUR BACKYARD BBQ: US soldiers carry their Independence Day lunch at their base in Bagram, Afghanistan, Thursday, July 4, 2002. SERGEI GRITS/AP

CIRCLING THE (STATION)WAGONS: Vietnamese-born American citizen Le Dam of Virginia attaches a US flag to his car in Old Town Alexandria. MOLLY RILEY/REUTERS

STANDING TALL: William Johnson, 11, of New Britain, Conn., dons a patriotic cap and carries the flag at a neighborhood Independence Day parade last year. BOB MACDONNELL/AP

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