Tomorrow is USA Independence Day

by Mike Gulett –

Thomas Jefferson had a way with words and the basic ideas presented in the Declaration of Independence are still very important today – not the part about grievances against the King of Great Britain – but this sentence below;

Thomas Jefferson

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.

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July – Independence Day for the USA – on this day in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed — 248 years ago!

Celebrations will be held from sea to shining sea!

Statue of Liberty – New York

Golden Gate Bridge – San Francisco

Abraham Lincoln also had a way with words and a few years later he was in the middle of an existential crisis for the USA, the terrible Civil War. Fortunately for all of us he and his generation rose to the challenge as he describes in his famous speech below.

The Gettysburg Address is the most admired speech by any US president and notice how brief it is as well.

Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Portrait by Alexander Gardner, 1863

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—Abraham Lincoln

Read the Declaration of Independence for yourself below – click the image to enlarge.

Happy Fourth of July to you all.

Summary

Article Name

USA Independence Day

Description

The Declaration of Independence triggered events that changed the world. This one page document demonstrates the power of words.

Author

Mike Gulett