The American Dream…

Today is July 4, 2006. Two hundred thirty years ago our nation was founded when 56 delegates of the 2nd Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. By doing so, they unleashed the potential of a new nation that would one day, claim its place in history, and be recognized as the world’s most powerful nation.

In 1776, The United States of America was a dream. With British rule, life in the colonies was hard. Laws were passed taxing the colonies, and yet gave them no representation in Parliament. Commodities were shipped from Great Britain to the colonies where they were charged higher prices than they were worth.

It was in this time that colonists began to whisper of a rebellion. Tired of British rule, the 2nd Continental Congress appointed George Washington Commander in Chief of the Continental Soldiers. What started as a rebellion to force Britain to ease restrictions soon turned into a revolution.

Congress appointed a young lawyer for Virginia to write a declaration that all colonists would accept and be willing to die for. Young Thomas Jefferson poured over his new assignment and began to ponder the American Ideal: Liberty.

Liberty. That one word means so much to Americans. Today politicians wave the American Flag and speak of liberty. But liberty to the colonists was different. Liberty, to them was freedom of taxation without representation; from being treated as a second class citizen.

While writing the draft for the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had to figure out who was entitled to liberty. If Jefferson had said only the elite were entitled to freedom and liberty, then the colonists would not have joined the side of the revolutionists. Instead Jefferson wrote, “that all men are created equal”. By saying “all men”, it gave hope to the colonists. It gave a dream, an ideal to work for.

This is the beauty of the American spirit. When Jefferson wrote that line, he knew that at that moment in time, “men” meant white men who owned property. But with the word “all”, it meant that the meaning could change.

After the United States won the war, the citizens began to ponder what the Declaration of Independence meant. It says that “all men are created equal”. Yet while they read this, they see that it wasn’t so. Women and slaves were not allowed to vote. So began the great debate of who liberty should be expanded to.

Change is slow. During the revolution, liberty was for only the wealthy men. But when the Civil War era came, the citizens would fight to expand liberty to slaves. During the early 1900s another revolution came to expand liberty to women.

This is the greatness of the nation. Our Constitution enables our government to make changes to itself. By stating “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence and by writing the Constitution to allow debate over the fate of the nation and vote, the United States is able to correct its wrongs. We are able to spread liberty to more and more groups. We have gone from rich men, to every citizen of the United States.

Today, our nation stands as a beacon of freedom to the world. Our founding fathers committed treason when they signed the Declaration of Independence, but knew the potential of what their nation would one day become. After the war, they offered General Washington the Kingship of the new nation, and he refused.

Was our nation founded because we were smarter, or was it founded because we were lucky? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and all the founding fathers chose not to take power for themselves, but instead gave it to the new government. Washington stepped down from the presidency after serving only two terms, thus setting a precedent for all future presidents except one (Franklin Roosevelt). When Thomas Jefferson was offered the Louisiana Purchase, he wasn’t even sure he was allowed make that decision because it wasn’t written in the constitution. We were lucky that these great men, these Americans, were on our side. These men loved this nation, and the ideals it represented.

Today, so many Americans believe that this nation owes them. They believe the government is to blame for their problems. If we as Americans, could look at the nation the way our founding fathers did, then we can look past our problems, and look for ways to resolve them. We would then see that it is not our government that is to blame, but ourselves, since our government is a direct reflection of the people.

Our nation was designed to evolve with the times. It was designed to expand and to live. The Declaration of Independence along with the Constitution is a living document, which allows for the citizens to take direct responsibility for the government; the first time in the history of the world. This is why the United States is today the most powerful nation in the world.

IN 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 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 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 harass 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 quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

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

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

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 rule 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 & 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

New Hampshire:Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton