Ringing of the Liberty Bell (to call the citizens to hear the reading of the Declaration of Independence)

American Minute ^ | July 8, 2020 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

The Pennsylvania Assembly ordered it to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Quaker leader William Penn founding the Colony in 1701 and writing the Charter of Privileges.

Quakers were the first and strongest voices to end slavery.  In 1751, Pennsylvania's Assembly declared a "Year of Jubilee" and commissioned the bell to be put in the Philadelphia State House.

Speaker Isaac Norris read the Leviticus chapter 25 verse 10:

"And ye shall make hallow the fiftieth year, and PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee."

"Jubilee" in the Israelite calendar was, after seven cycles of seven years - 49 years, there would be a sabbath year of release.

Slaves would be freed, debts were to be forgiven, and lands were to be returned to the original families who owned them, to demonstrate the mercies of God.

Inscribed on The Liberty Bell is:

"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE THE INHABITANTS THEREOF."

The Liberty Bell, weighing over 2,000 pounds, was cast in England in August of 1752.

The Liberty Bell got its name from being rung JULY 8, 1776, to call the citizens of Philadelphia together to hear the Declaration of Independence read out loud for the first time.

A copy of the Declaration was rushed to General Washington in New York, who had it read out loud to his troops, July 9, 1776.

Washington then immediately appointed chaplains to each regiment, ordering that:

"Officers and soldiers ... attend carefully upon religious exercises. The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger -

The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavor

[Perseverando]

Time for another great American (and world) history lesson from American Minute.

[loveliberty2]

Thank you for posting these wonderful words!

Here are some others of the same time and susbstance:

The Jubilee of the Constitution

A DISCOURSE

Delivered at the Request of

The New York Historical Society

In the City of New York,

On Tuesday, the 30^th of April, 1839

Being the Fiftieth Anniversary

Of the

INAUGURATION OF GEORGE WASHINGTON

as

President of the United States

on Thursday, 30^th of April, 1789.

by

John Quincy Adams

 

(Eldest son of John Adams, born in 1767, served as Minister to the Netherlands under President Washington, as minister to Prussia and to Russia, as Secretary of State, and as U.S. Senator.  He was the Sixth President of the United States and from 1830 until his death in 1848 was a United States Congressman)

 

Excerpts:

 

“The motive for the Declaration of Independence was on its face avowed to be "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Its purpose to declare the causes which impelled the people of the English colonies on the continent of North America, to separate themselves from the political community of the British nation. They declare only, the causes of their separation, but they announce at the same time their assumption of the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, among the powers of the earth.

“Thus their first movement is to recognize and appeal to the laws of nature and to nature's God, for their right to assume the attributes of sovereign power as an independent nation.

“The causes of their necessary separation, for they begin and end by declaring it necessary, alleged in the Declaration, are all founded on the same laws of nature and of nature's God - and hence as preliminary to the enumeration of the causes of separation, they set forth as self-evident truths, the rights of individual man, by the laws of nature and of nature's God, to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness. That all men are created equal. That to secure the rights of life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. All this is by the laws of nature and of nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of a God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and of government. It avers, also, that governments are instituted to secure these rights of nature and of nature's God, and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of THE PEOPLE to alter, or to abolish it, and to institute a new government - to throw off a government degenerating into despotism, and to provide new guards for their future security. They proceed then to say that such was then the situation of the Colonies, and such the necessity which constrained them to alter their former systems of government.”

____________________

 

“The Declaration of Independence recognized the European law of nations, as practiced among Christian nations, to be that by which they considered themselves bound, and of which they claimed the rights. This system is founded upon the principle, that the state of nature between men and between  nations, is a state of peace. But there was a Mahometan law of nations, which considered the state of nature as a state of war - an Asiatic law of nations, which excluded all foreigners from admission within the territories of the state - a colonial law of nations, which excluded all foreigners from admission within the colonies - and a savage Indian law of nations, by which the Indian tribes within the bounds of the United States, were under their protection, though in a condition of undefined dependence upon the governments of the separate states. With all these different communities, the relations of the United States were from the time when they had become an independent nation, variously modified according to the operation of those various laws. It was the purpose of the Constitution of the United States to establish justice over them all.

 

“The commercial and political relations of the Union with the Christian European  nations, were principally with Great Britain, France, and Spain, and considerably with the Netherlands and Portugal. With all these there was peace; but with Britain and Spain, controversies involving the deepest interests and the very existence of the nation, were fermenting, and negotiations of the most humiliating character were pending, from which the helpless imbecility of the confederation afforded no prospect of relief. With the other European states there was scarcely any intercourse. The Baltic was an unknown sea to our navigators, and all the rich and classical regions of the Mediterranean were interdicted to the commercial enterprise of our merchants, and the dauntless skill of our mariners, by the Mahometan merciless warfare of the Barbary powers. Scarcely had the peace of our independence been concluded, when three of our merchant-vessels had been captured by the corsairs of Algiers, and their crews, citizens of the Union, had been pining for years in slavery, appealing to their country for redemption, in vain.  Nor was this all.  By the operation of this state of things, all the shores of the Black sea, of the whole Mediterranean, of the islands on the African coast, of the southern ports of France, of all Spain and of Portugal, were closed against our commerce, as if they had been hermetically sealed; while Britain, everywhere our rival and competitor was counteracting by every stimulant within her power every attempt on our part to compound by tribute with the Barbarian for peace.

 

“Great Britain had also excluded us from all commerce in our own vessels with her colonies, and France, notwithstanding her alliance with us during the war, had after the conclusion of the peace adopted the same policy. She was jealous of our aggrandizement, fearful of our principles, linked with Spain in the project of debarring us from the navigation of the Mississippi, and settled in the determination to shackle us in the development of the gigantic powers which, with insidious sagacity, she foresaw might be abused.

 

“Notwithstanding all these discouragements, the inextinguishable spirit of freedom,  which had carried your forefathers through the exterminating war of the Revolution, was yet unsuppressed. At the very time when the nerveless confederacy could neither protect nor redeem their sailors from Algerian captivity, the floating city of the Taho beheld the stripes and stars of the Union, opening to the breeze from a schooner of thirty tons, and inquired where  was the ship of which that frail fabric was doubtless the tender. The Southern ocean was stiff vexed with the harpoons of their whalemen; but Britain excluded their oil, by prohibitory duties and the navigation act, from her markets, and the more indulgent liberality of France would consent to the illumination of her cities by the quakers of Nantucket, only upon condition that they should forsake their native island, and become the naturalized denizens of Dunkirk."

(End of excerpts)