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Happy Independence Day!

July 4, 2019 by Bookworm Leave a Comment

Independence Day

In 1776, a miracle happened: For the first time in history, men conceived of a nation dedicated to liberty. That the execution was imperfect and took time to be brought to fruition is irrelevant. All that matters is that something extraordinary happened on July 4, 1776 and that 243 years later Americans, as well as the entire free world, still enjoy the benefits of that miracle.

Have a happy July 4th — and let me know what you think of Trump’s celebration. I’ll be on the road again, so I’ll only be able to see it in re-runs later today.

Filed Under: America Tagged With: Independence Day, July 4th

July 4, 1776: the Declaration of Independence — by Wolf Howling

July 4, 2016 by Bookworm 7 Comments

Declaration of IndependenceHappy Fourth of July.

On this day, in 1776, our Founders passed The Declaration of Independence, severing ties with Great Britain and announcing the birth of a new nation. The American colonists were then in the midst of a war that would see battles in all thirteen colonies, with the outcome of the war very much in doubt right up until victory came in the aftermath of British General Cornwallis’s Surrender at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. From the British perspective, the American Revolution ignited aworld war with France, Spain and Holland that would not end until 1782.

The American Revolution began in 1761, when British officials began a corrupt, concerted and heavy handed effort to end smuggling and increase revenues in the colonies, with these efforts falling hardest in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first overt act of war did not take place until 1774, when Britain, bent on punishing all of Boston for the Boston Tea Party, established a complete naval blockade of Boston’s harbor. The actual shooting war began in April, 1775, when the British tried to disarm the patriots at Concord, Massachusetts. A second battle had taken place in June, 1775 when the colonists pre-empted a British attack by occupying Breeds Hill overlooking Boston, in what would later be called, incorrectly, the Battle of Bunker Hill.

And yet, it was by no means clear, until July 2, 1776 that the colonists would declare themselves independent of Britain. When the Second Continental Congress convened in May, 1775, the colonists still saw themselves as loyal citizens of Britain and their individual colonies. They had no desire to permanently join together the thirteen colonies. The colonies united simply for defense; the clear goal otherwise was not independence, but a return to the pre-1761 relationship that the individual colonies enjoyed with Britain.

In the end, it was not the colonists who declared war on Britain and started a revolution in the lead-up to 4 July, 1776; it was the other way around. For over a decade, Britain had been passing ever more draconian laws and taxes which would have had the effect, if meekly accepted, of stripping from the colonists all of the rights enjoyed by British citizens living in Britain proper. Then, in the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party, it was King George himself who decided that “blows should decide the issue.” It was the King of Britain who declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, who sent the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century to the colonies to establish military rule, who authorized a naval war on the colonies, and who resolutely refused all formal entreaties from the colonists to engage in peaceful discussions. It was Britain’s forces in the colonies that, by July 1776, had started the shooting war by forcing the colonist’s hand at Lexington and Concord and had committed acts of pure terrorism in the attacks on civilian targets, including the burning of Falmouth. It was the British officials in the colonies who had allied with the Indians to attack the colonists from the west, and it was these same officials that sought to use slaves as a military force against the colonies.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: America, Constitution Tagged With: Declaration of Independence, Fourth of July, July 4th

John Adams Jumps The Gun — by Wolf Howling

July 3, 2016 by Bookworm 14 Comments

John AdamsJohn Adams’s letter to his wife following the July 2, 1776 vote in the First Second Continental Congress to approve the Declaration of Independence.

. . . The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — 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 tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not. . . .

The First Continental Congress sent the Declaration to the print shop on 2 July after two days of edits. The Declaration was then publicly released on the 4th of July, 1776.

Filed Under: Constitution Tagged With: Constitution, Declaration of Independence, John Adams, July 4th

Happy July 4th!

July 4, 2013 by Bookworm 3 Comments

So far, despite the efforts of some people who will go nameless in this post, we continue to be blessed to live in the United States of America.  Despite the constant nibbling away at the edges, we are still a land of free, brave, and prosperous people, and we can only hope that we stay that way.

The men who signed this great document did so knowing that, the moment their name appeared on that paper, they had the hangman’s rope around their neck.  It was win or die.

At many times over the next seven years, death seemed like a very real possibility to these patriots, and there were certainly man ordinary men — not statesmen, but farmers and shopkeepers, fathers, brothers, and sons — who freely gave their lives on the field of battle to the greater cause of individual liberty.

In the American of 2013, we too often look back and see America’s independence as a foregone conclusion.  There were no such comforting conclusions then.  Instead, there were many dark days when it looked as if freedom was illusory and impossible.  Those patriots never gave up their struggling for individual liberty and neither should we.

Happy July 4th!!

Declaration of Independence

And thanks to the men and women who have put themselves at the front line to preserve this liberty over the years.

Flag at Iwo Jima

Happy birthday, America!

statue_of_liberty_with_fireworks

Filed Under: America Tagged With: Declaration of Independence, Fourth of July, July 4th, Revolutionary War

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